House of Commons Public Accounts Committ's Books

House of Commons - Public Accounts Committee: The Border Force: Securing the Border - HC 663

Securing the Border, Thirty-first Report of Session 2013-14, Report, Together with Formal Minutes, Oral and Written Evidence

By: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts

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House of Commons - Public Accounts Committee: The Border Force: Securing the Border - HC 663

Securing the Border, Thirty-first Report of Session 2013-14, Report, Together with Formal Minutes, Oral and Written Evidence

By: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts

The Border Force's 7,600 staff operate immigration and customs controls at 138 air, sea and rail ports across the UK. It has a budget of £604 million for 2013-14, but is facing cuts. It has had to prioritise passenger checks at the expense of its other duties thereby weakening security at the border by neglecting other duties, such as the examination of freight for illicit goods, and checks in Calais on lorries to detect concealed illegal entrants. It was not able to meet and check up to 90,000 private planes or private boats arriving in the UK each year, leaving the UK border vulnerable and raising issues about resourcing and how priorities are set. The Border Force acknowledged that it had missed 8 of its 19 seizure and detection targets. Recommendations: set out how it will ensure that it delivers its full range of duties across all ports to provide the required level of national security; demonstrate that it can deliver its workload within the resources available; must address the gaps in the data it receives on people arriving in the UK, and the existing data needs to be cleansed to increase the quality, reliability and usefulness of the intelligence generated; set out how, and by when, it will have in place the functional IT systems it needs to underpin the security of the UK border; senior management must provide the organisation with a clear sense of purpose and tackle those barriers which inhibit the flexible and effective deployment of its staff.

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The Stationery Office

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ISBN 10

0215064828

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9780215064820

Department for International Development annual report and resource accounts 2010-11 and business plan 2011-15

fourteenth report of session 2010-12, Vol. 1: Report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence

By: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee

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Department for International Development annual report and resource accounts 2010-11 and business plan 2011-15

fourteenth report of session 2010-12, Vol. 1: Report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence

By: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee

While DFID's total budget is increasing, the Department will both restrict operating costs to 2% by 2014-15 and reduce its administrative costs by a third in real terms, from £128 million in 2010-11 to £94 million by 2014-15. This report warns that capping operational costs and staff numbers may not reduce overall costs or improve effective delivery of development assistance. The International Development Committee also raises concerns that cost pressures are driving DFID to use consultants to deliver its programmes, rather than in-house expertise. The Department spends £450 million on technical cooperation per year. Much of this is good work, yet it was unclear exactly what this money was spent on, or how effective it was and the extent to which external providers were used. DFID needs to improve its assessment of which projects and services it should use consultants for; and assess more carefully the use of consultants to manage the Department's own delivery programmes. In its efforts to reduce administrative spending DFID might be 'exporting' these costs to other organisations, including NGOs and multilateral aid organisations, with higher real administration costs. The Department should assess the best and most effective way to deliver development assistance as it may be able to do it more cheaply and effectively than external organisations. The report recommends that the Department improves its tracking of and reporting on the total cost of administering its aid programme with the aim of quantifying how much aid actually ends up reaching recipients.

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The Stationery Office

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ISBN 10

0215042913

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9780215042910

The Accountability of Civil Servants

Report, 6th Report of Session 2012-13

By: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Lords: Select Committee on the Constitution

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The Accountability of Civil Servants

Report, 6th Report of Session 2012-13

By: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Lords: Select Committee on the Constitution

This report expresses concern that proposals in the Governments Civil Service Reform Plan, such as allowing ministers to select departmental permanent secretaries from a shortlist and directly to appoint civil servants on fixed-term contracts, could risk undermining the impartiality of the civil service, threaten the principle that appointments are based on merit and make it harder for officials to give honest advice to ministers. Ministers remain constitutionally responsible for everything their departments and their civil servants do. Ministers should not seek to distance themselves from the actions of civil servants, or of special advisers. The Committee also addresses the relationship between parliamentary select committees and the civil service. The report concludes that select committees should have greater access to advice given to ministers by civil servants and that select committees should be able to call former civil servants to give evidence on projects which they used to work on. Other recommendations in the report include that: Parliament should in future be given the chance to scrutinise revised editions of the Osmotherly rules, which provide guidance to civil servants on dealing with select committees; the Osmotherly rules, however, should not be regarded as anything more than guidance for civil servants; when select committees call for specific civil servants to give evidence the Government should normally agree to the request; it should be normal practice for a single senior civil servant to oversee major Government projects from start to finish, in order to ensure better accountability of such projects

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The Stationery Office

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0108476278

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9780108476273

The pre-emption of Parliament

13th report of session 2012-13

By: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Lords: Select Committee on the Constitution

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The pre-emption of Parliament

13th report of session 2012-13

By: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Lords: Select Committee on the Constitution

The House of Lords Constitution Committee has today published a report which says that the Government should do more to inform Parliament when ministers propose to take action before Parliament has passed the legislation that would make that action legal. The Committee says that when ministers want to act in anticipation of legislation, known as "pre-empting Parliament", they should set out what they want to do, why and under what powers in a statement made to Parliament. The Committee also says the Government should publish a full list of instances where they pre-empted Parliament at the end of each parliamentary session. The Committee calls on the Government to consolidate the principles and practices governing pre-emption and restate them clearly in the Cabinet Manual. It stresses that pre-emption should not take place when it might threaten the principle of effective parliamentary scrutiny.

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ISBN 10

0108550699

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9780108550690

HC 470 - Building public engagement: Options for developing select committee outreach

By: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Liaison Committee

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HC 470 - Building public engagement: Options for developing select committee outreach

By: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Liaison Committee

In 2012 the House of Commons introduced a new 'core task' for all select committees that focused on public engagement as a distinctive and explicit factor of their work. This report focuses on how the select committees have responded to the new core task. Three core conclusions emerged: a) there has been a significant shift within the select committee system to taking public engagement seriously and this is reflected in many examples of innovation; b) this shift, however, has not been systematic and levels of public engagement vary significantly from committee to committee; and c) a more vibrant and systematic approach to public engagement is urgently needed but this will require increased resources, a deeper appreciation of the distinctive contribution that select committees can make and a deeper cultural change at Westminster. This report therefore details innovations in relation to the use of social media, the structure of inquiries and innovative outreach. Public engagement has not yet been fully embedded into the culture of parliament but there is evidence of significant 'cracks and wedges' that can now be built-upon and extended during the 2015-20 Parliament. Clearly the focus of the committee and the topic of the inquiry will have some bearing on the approach to engagement adopted but a more expansive and ambitious approach across the board is to be encouraged. This report leads to a ten-point set of inter-related recommendations but they can all be connected in the sense that the existing social research demonstrates a clear desire on the part of the public to 'do politics differently'.

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0215087984

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9780215087980

Review of Select Committee Activity and Proposals for New Committee Activity

1st Report of Session 2012-13, Report

By: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Lords: Liaison Committee

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Review of Select Committee Activity and Proposals for New Committee Activity

1st Report of Session 2012-13, Report

By: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Lords: Liaison Committee

In this report the Liaison Committee conducts a brief review of House of Lords policy committees, in advance of the appointment of those committees in the new Parliament

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0108550524

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9780108550522

House of Commons: Sessional Returns - HC 1

9 May 2012 - 25 April 2013

By: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons

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House of Commons: Sessional Returns - HC 1

9 May 2012 - 25 April 2013

By: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons

On cover and title page: House, committees of the whole House, general committees and select committees. On title page: Returns to orders of the House of Commons dated 14 May 2013 (the Chairman of Ways and Means)

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350

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The Stationery Office

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ISBN 10

0215062272

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9780215062277

HC 825 - Effectiveness of the Committee in 2012-13

By: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Home Affairs Committee

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HC 825 - Effectiveness of the Committee in 2012-13

By: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Home Affairs Committee

In order to monitor the effectiveness of its Reports, the Home Affairs Committee maintains a colour-coded grid of its recommendations. Recommendations are coded green if, in it's view, the Government has accepted them, red if they have been rejected, and yellow if they have been partially accepted, or if the Government has undertaken to give them further consideration. This Report covers the Committee's work in the 2012-13 Session. The Committee will use the grid to inform its choice of inquiries over the course of the Parliament, returning to earlier recommendations where it appears that there may be some merit in doing so, but avoiding reduplication of earlier work where it appears unlikely to prove beneficial

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168

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The Stationery Office

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0215078888

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9780215078889

House of Commons - Welsh Affairs Committee: The Work Programme in Wales - HC 264

Third Report of Session 2013-14, Vol. 1: Report, Together with Formal Minutes, Oral and Written Evidence

By: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Welsh Affairs Committee

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House of Commons - Welsh Affairs Committee: The Work Programme in Wales - HC 264

Third Report of Session 2013-14, Vol. 1: Report, Together with Formal Minutes, Oral and Written Evidence

By: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Welsh Affairs Committee

The Work Programme is the latest government-contracted employment programme, which aims to support long-term jobseekers into work and off unemployment benefits. Launched in June 2011, the Work Programme replaced a number of previous welfare-to-work programmes and consolidates employment support for a very wide range of jobseekers into a single mainstream programme. Providers, who are predominantly commercial companies, provide support to participants, and receive payments for finding participants sustained employment. In Wales one in nine people who joined the Work Programme in its first two years found sustained employment (defined as 13 or 26 weeks). This is the lowest rate in Great Britain, though not much lower than the average. The Committee's conclusions include: Working Links Wales and Rehab Jobfit-the two providers operating in Wales-must ensure that both they and their subcontractors have specific measures in place to support lone parents; and that Work Programme participants in Wales-unlike those in England-cannot access European Social Fund training and skills courses which is hampering the performance of the Work Programme in Wales and ultimately the opportunities available to the long-term unemployed. Similarly, DWP must enable participants to exit the Work Programme if required in order to access Jobs Growth Wales. The key issue here seems to be that there is a lack of flexibility in and between the various programmes set up to get people into work, and that this lack of flexibility appears to be more marked in Wales

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110

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021506335X

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9780215063359

Parliament and the legislative process

By: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Lords: Select Committee on the Constitution

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Parliament and the legislative process

By: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Lords: Select Committee on the Constitution

Parliament and the legislative Process : 14th report of session 2003-04, Vol. 2: Evidence

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198

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The Stationery Office

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0104005408

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9780104005408

Time for a People's Ombudsman Service - HC 655

By: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee,Bernard Jenkin

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Time for a People's Ombudsman Service - HC 655

By: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee,Bernard Jenkin

In this report the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) calls for a 'People's Ombudsman' and says the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO), which investigates complaints against the NHS and other government departments and agencies, is outdated. Citizens should have direct and more user-friendly access to the Ombudsman. None of the Ombudsmen created since the PHSO's operations were established in legislation 47 years ago have adopted the same restricted model as the Parliamentary Ombudsman. As a priority, the restriction on citizens' direct and open access to PHSO, known as the MP filter, must be abolished (as is already the case in respect of NHS complaints). PHSO must be able to receive complaints other than in writing: such as in person, by telephone or online, just as is expected of any normal complaints system. PHSO should have powers to investigate areas of concern without having first to receive a complaint from a service user. Parliament should strengthen the accountability of PHSO. PASC, along with other Departmental Select Committees, should make greater use of the intelligence gathered by the PHSO to hold Government to account. A consultation should be held on the creation of a single public services ombudsman for England. At the same time, there must be a distinctive ombudsman service for UK non-devolved matters.

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0215071743

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9780215071743

Review of the National Audit Office's corporate governance

fourteenth report

By: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Accounts Commission

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Review of the National Audit Office's corporate governance

fourteenth report

By: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Accounts Commission

This report presents John Tiner's "Review of the National Audit Office's corporate governance". The head of the National Audit Office, the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG), is an Officer of the House of Commons appointed by the Queen, and is completely independent of Government and enjoys complete discretion over the discharge of his functions. The current C&AG has put in place a number of governance processes, but in their effectiveness these fall short of what is currently best practice. The NAO must remain independent, but work within systems of governance that are consistent with best practice, and follow relevant auditing and professional standards. The main proposals are: (1) the NAO should be formed as a body corporate with a governing board comprising a majority of independent non executive directors. Its main functions should be to set the strategy of the Office, support and oversee the work of the C&AG, ensure the Office conducts its business in an economic, efficient and effective way and satisfy itself that the systems of governance and internal controls operate effectively and to the highest standards. (2) The Chief Executive (the C&AG) should have complete personal discretion as to the audit judgements he reaches and the presentation of those judgements to the Public Accounts Committee and other committees of Parliament as may be necessary. (3) Both the Chairman and Chief Executive of the NAO Board would be appointed by the Queen on a motion from the House of Commons. The Chairman and the other non-executives should be appointed for a term of 3 years renewable once. The Chief Executive should be appointed for a fixed term of 8 years which cannot be renewed.

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0215513622

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9780215513625

HM Revenue & Customs accounts 2010-11

tax disputes, sixty-first report of session 2010-12, report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence

By: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts

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HM Revenue & Customs accounts 2010-11

tax disputes, sixty-first report of session 2010-12, report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence

By: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts

The Commons Public Accounts Committee publishes its 61st Report of the Session which, on the basis of evidence from the Cabinet Office and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), examined tax disputes. At 31 March 2011 HM Revenue & Customs was seeking to resolve tax issues valued at over £25 billion with large companies, some of which included disputes over outstanding tax. In this report, the Committee expresses concern about how the Department handled some cases involving large settlements and that there needs to be proper separation between the negotiation of tax settlements and the authorization of such settlements. The Committee also states that HMRC made matters worse by trying to avoid scrutiny of these settlements, keeping confidential the details of specific settlements with large companies. This effects Parliament's ability to establish value for money, compounded further by imprecise, inconsistent and potentially misleading answers given by senior departmental officials, including the Permanent Secretary for Tax in particular over his evidence on his relationship with Goldman Sachs, in facilitating a settlement with the company over their tax dispute. HMRC governance processes in these matters were inconsistent and it has now appointed two new Commissioners with tax expertise, and plans to introduce a new assessor role to permit independent review of large settlements before they are finalised. The Committee further states that it saw little evidence of personal accountability within the Department, and that a perception has developed that large companies are treated more favourably, receiving preferential treatment compared to small businesses and individuals.

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170

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0215040074

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9780215040077

Book's by House of Commons Public Accounts Committ

House of Commons - Public Accounts Committee: The Border Force: Securing the Border - HC 663

House of Commons - Public Accounts Committee: The Border Force: Securing the Border - HC 663

Department for International Development annual report and resource accounts 2010-11 and business plan 2011-15

Department for International Development annual report and resource accounts 2010-11 and business plan 2011-15

The Accountability of Civil Servants

The Accountability of Civil Servants

The pre-emption of Parliament

The pre-emption of Parliament

HC 470 - Building public engagement: Options for developing select committee outreach

HC 470 - Building public engagement: Options for developing select committee outreach

Review of Select Committee Activity and Proposals for New Committee Activity

Review of Select Committee Activity and Proposals for New Committee Activity

House of Commons: Sessional Returns - HC 1

House of Commons: Sessional Returns - HC 1

HC 825 - Effectiveness of the Committee in 2012-13

HC 825 - Effectiveness of the Committee in 2012-13

House of Commons - Welsh Affairs Committee: The Work Programme in Wales - HC 264

House of Commons - Welsh Affairs Committee: The Work Programme in Wales - HC 264

Parliament and the legislative process

Parliament and the legislative process

Time for a People's Ombudsman Service - HC 655

Time for a People's Ombudsman Service - HC 655

Review of the National Audit Office's corporate governance

Review of the National Audit Office's corporate governance

HM Revenue & Customs accounts 2010-11

HM Revenue & Customs accounts 2010-11

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