The NAO has called for government to negotiate greater access to information about how much outsourced public services are actually costing suppliers and therefore how much profit they are making.
While the impact of the Pupil Premium will take time to become clear, it has the potential to bring about a significant improvement in outcomes. However, the Department for Education and schools have more to do.
The civil service must build on the progress it has made in managing equality, diversity and inclusion and place greater emphasis on departments’ valuing and maximizing the contribution of every member of their staff. This is more likely to deliver the business benefits than solely a focus on levels of representation of groups with ‘protected characteristics’.
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.
Over 10 million people who used public services (about 1 in 5) in the UK last year faced problems with the services. Detriment can and does occur. But users find the complaints and redress systems confusing.
The new military flying training is 6 years delayed and there is much to do if the MoD is to get the planned benefits from its contractor.
The first phase of the Care Act has been implemented well, but this places new responsibilities on local authorities whose core funding is being significantly reduced.
The Department for Communities and Local Government has taken steps since November 2014 to improve its understanding of new burdens on local authorities.
Staff numbers and costs have reduced significantly in the last five years. Not enough planning, however, has gone into making sure that the reductions are sustainable.
The GREAT campaign enables government organisations to adopt consistent and effective brand management. To date, Cabinet Office has reported a return of £1.2 billion on its £113.5 million GREAT campaign investment. This is based on anticipated as well as actual expenditure by business, tourists and students.
Police forces have successfully reduced costs since 2011, but do not have a clear understanding of the demands placed upon them or of the factors that affect their costs.
This strategy sets out how the NAO will achieve a more diverse and inclusive workforce and ensure that our work helps improve diversity and inclusion across the public sector, and reports on our diversity progress so far.
This series of papers summarises the methodological approaches we have taken in carrying out innovative or novel analysis. Such analysis is conducted under our statutory authority to examine and report to Parliament on the economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which government departments and other bodies have used their resources.
The Audit insights papers are methodological summaries and do not make new observations about value for money.
This briefing on the NHS and sustainability in England has been prepared for the Environmental Audit Committee. It focuses on identifying potential good practice, opportunities and challenges and draws on the NAO’s good practice criteria.
This series of papers summarises the methodological approaches we have taken in carrying out innovative or novel analysis. Such analysis is conducted under our statutory authority to examine and report to Parliament on the economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which government departments and other bodies have used their resources.
The Audit insights papers are methodological summaries and do not make new observations about value for money.
The National Audit Office has today published its findings on the Civil Service Learning contract with Capita Business Services Ltd (Capita). The NAO’s enquiries address specific concerns from several people who raised different but overlapping concerns about the operation of the contract.
The NAO’s briefing on One HMG Overseas, for the Foreign Affairs Committee, assesses progress on each of the five strands of work in One HMG Overseas.
This report examines the arrangements for disabled students at Plymouth University whose support requirements were assessed by an assessment centre based on the University’s main campus.
The update looks at how the centre of government’s role has evolved in response to austerity, examines recent developments such as how the leadership of functions and professions has been brought together under the new Chief Executive of the Civil Service.
The centre of government has little oversight of official travel, leaving this role to departments, although it does seek to manage the price of travel.