The Ministry of Defence (the Department) has committed itself to annual rental bills of nearly £200 million and lost out on billions of pounds of asset value as a result of selling and leasing back the majority of its married quarters estate to Annington Property Limited in 1996 because of the subsequent steep increase in house prices and rents.
The MoD’s new regulations for overseeing non-competitive procurement has the potential to save significant sums of money, if implemented properly.
This report examines the evidence base supporting the decision to proceed with the Thames Tideway Tunnel, a tunnel running 25 kilometres from Acton to Abbey Mills, as well as progress achieved to date.
Annual spending on consultants and temporary staff has reduced by £1.5 billion since 2010 when strict spending controls were introduced. However, annual spend is now increasing once more and is between £400 million and £600 million higher than in 2011-12.
Government’s programme to transfer back-office functions to two shared service centres has made savings but has not achieved value for money to date.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change’s Green Deal design not only failed to deliver any meaningful benefit, it increased suppliers’ costs – and therefore energy bills – in meeting their obligations through the ECO scheme.
The government is selling assets on an unprecedented scale but, given the equally large scale of its new loans and other initiatives, the overall projected net effect is a £200m increase in borrowing.
The Department has committed electricity consumers and taxpayers to a high cost and risky deal in a changing energy marketplace. We cannot say the Department has maximised the chances that it will achieve value for money.
The sale of Eurostar generated proceeds of £757m. The government prepared well for the sale and achieved its objectives to maximise proceeds. The sale illustrates some general lessons for government as it embarks on its asset sales programme.
Since 2010 there has been an increase in the number of companies in government at the same time as a reduction in the number of public bodies which raises issues of transparency, accountability, governance and review.
This report outlines the importance of recognising and adequately managing conflicts of interest.
Under the Scheme, the Treasury guarantees that lenders to infrastructure projects will be repaid in full and on time, irrespective of project performance. The NAO is calling for the Treasury to be rigorous and objective in assessing whether the guarantees, which transfer risk to the public sector, are genuinely needed.
Since privatisation, Ofwat and Defra have overseen major improvements in water quality and service quality. Customers have seen a marked rise in bills but not the benefits of companies’ unexpected financial gains.
With the number of further education (FE) colleges in financial difficulty expected to rise rapidly, there are fundamental structural problems which might require decisions at a regional or sector-wide level.
The NAO publishes a briefing paper considering capital investment by government and how it chooses to finance it.
A programme to sell enough government land by March 2015 to build a potential 100,000 homes did not collect information on the amount of money raised or how many homes have actually been built. In future land sales, responsibility for monitoring what happens to land after disposal should be made clear.
The Government’s first sale of shares in Lloyds Banking Group was managed very effectively by United Kingdom Financial Investments Limited.
The Department is not able to demonstrate the effectiveness of how it and others intervene in underperforming maintained schools and academies.
In its sale of the 4G radio spectrum the Office of Communications (Ofcom) achieved its objective of maintaining a competitive market with a number of competing providers.
The Department was successful in floating Royal Mail. But its approach was marked by deep caution, the price of which was borne by the taxpayer.