Reducing Costs In The Department For Work And Pensions
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Reducing Costs In The Department For Work And Pensions
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Author : Great Britain: National Audit Office
language : en
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Release Date : 2011-06-23
Reducing Costs In The Department For Work And Pensions written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and has been published by The Stationery Office this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2011-06-23 with Business & Economics categories.
The NAO reports that the Department for Work and Pensions will have to make rapid progress in reorganising the way it operates if it is to meet its target of achieving sustainable running cost reductions of £2.7 billion while implementing substantial welfare reforms and a £17 billion reduction in benefits and pensions by 2014-15. Since 2007, the Department has reported reductions of £2 billion in its running costs, and initial out-turn data show that it met its target from the June 2010 Budget to reduce running costs by £535 million in 2010-11. However, the NAO has concluded that the Department must make progress quickly in order to be able to demonstrate that it can secure sustained cost reductions in a structured and strategic way. The report recognises that the DWP is only at the start of its new cost reduction challenge. However, without basing its running cost reduction plans more on robust information on the profile of its business costs and how that relates to the value of the services delivered, the Department is not in the position to make rational choices about what it should stop doing, what it should change and what it should continue. Recent cost reductions have been based largely on budget restrictions rather than on fundamental reform of working practices. Three months into the Spending Review and the Department does not yet have a detailed model of how it wants to run in the future.
Cost Reduction In Central Government
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Author : Great Britain: National Audit Office
language : en
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Release Date : 2012-02-02
Cost Reduction In Central Government written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and has been published by The Stationery Office this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2012-02-02 with Business & Economics categories.
This report by the National Audit Office on progress by central government departments in reducing costs concludes that departments took effective action in 2010-11, cutting spending in real terms by 2.3 per cent or £7.9 billion, compared with 2009-10. The analysis of departments' accounts supports the Efficiency and Reform Group's estimate that Government spending moratoria and efficiency initiatives, including cuts to back-office and avoidable costs, contributed around half of the figure, some £3.75 billion. However, the report warns that departments are less well-placed to make the long-term changes needed to achieve the further 19 per cent over the four years to 2014-15, as required by the spending review. This is partly because of gaps in their understanding of costs and risks, making it more difficult to identify how to deliver activities and services at a permanently lower cost. Fundamental changes will be needed to achieve sustainable reductions on the scale required. It is unclear how far spending reductions represent year-on-year changes in efficiency, or whether front-line services are affected; and the departments' forward plans examined by the NAO are not based on a strategic view. Departments' financial data on basic spending patterns is sufficient to manage budgets in-year, but information about the consequences of changes in spending is less good. Longer term reform is a Cabinet Office priority and departments will need to look beyond short-term cost cutting measures and make major operational change. Cost reduction plans also need to build in contingency measures to cover unexpected risks.
Cost Reduction In Central Government
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Author : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
language : en
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Release Date : 2012-04-27
Cost Reduction In Central Government written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and has been published by The Stationery Office this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2012-04-27 with Political Science categories.
The National Audit Office report on this topic published as HC 1788, session 2010-12 (ISBN 9780102975376)
Reducing Costs In Hm Revenue Customs
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Author : Great Britain: National Audit Office
language : en
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Release Date : 2011-07-20
Reducing Costs In Hm Revenue Customs written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and has been published by The Stationery Office this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2011-07-20 with Political Science categories.
HM Revenue & Customs faces a significant challenge in securing a £1.6 billion reduction in running costs over the next four years, at the same time as increasing tax revenues, improving customer service and achieving reductions in welfare payments. HMRC has reported savings of some £1.4 billion since 2005. To achieve its cost reductions it plans to implement 24 change projects and other measures including savings in the provision of IT services, improvements in productivity, reduced sickness absence and headcount reductions. The size and shape of HMRC will change substantially as it reduces staff numbers by 10,000 and significantly reduces the number of offices it operates. HMRC has established a clear vision and specified operational priorities and revenue targets. It has not yet sufficiently defined the business performance and customer service it intends to achieve by 2015. It has good information on the different costs it incurs but only limited information on the cost of its end-to-end processes and on the cost of servicing different customers groups. It also has a limited understanding of the link between the cost and value of its activities. This has restricted its ability to assess fully the impact of cost reductions on business performance. HMRC has made no allowance in its cost reduction plans for under-delivery or slippage, and currently has no reserve of proposals on which to draw. HMRC has begun to implement its cost reduction plans but has not yet assessed all the dependencies between projects and the critical path for delivery.
Managing Change In The Defence Workforce
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Author : Great Britain: National Audit Office
language : en
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Release Date : 2012-02-09
Managing Change In The Defence Workforce written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and has been published by The Stationery Office this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2012-02-09 with Technology & Engineering categories.
The Department's approach to reducing its headcount has been largely in accordance with good practice and, up to now, it has acted in a way that is consistent with value for money. However, the urgent need for the Department to cut costs means it is having to cut its headcount in advance of planning in detail how it will operate in the future, thereby risking making current skills shortages worse. The Department plans to cut its civilian workforce by 29,000 and its armed forces by 25,000. To meet these targets, the MOD has started a redundancy programme and a Voluntary Early Release Scheme, both of which run in several tranches. The most recent estimates by the Department are that the process will cost £0.9 billion and produce £4.1 billion in cost reductions (just over £3 billion net). The potential savings fluctuate with the timing of the redundancy tranches (a delay of three months to the second military tranche has reduced savings from this tranche alone by an estimated £100 million to £138 million to 2015). The Department now has to reduce the numbers in the Army by a further 5,000 by 2015 but has not worked out in detail how it will do this. Delays to the process erode the level of potential savings as the Department continues to pay salaries, benefits and contributions to pensions. Without real changes to ways of working, cutting headcount is likely to result in the Department's doing less with fewer people or, alternatively, trying to do the same with greater risk
Managing Staff Costs In Central Government
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Author : Great Britain: National Audit Office
language : en
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Release Date : 2011-03-11
Managing Staff Costs In Central Government written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and has been published by The Stationery Office this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2011-03-11 with Political Science categories.
The total costs of central government staff grew by 10 per cent in real terms in the ten years to 2009-10, with current costs totalling £16.4 billion. Over the same period, staff numbers fell by 1 per cent, from 497,000 full time equivalents to 493,000. The growth in staff costs is largely the result of an unplanned increase in the number of staff in higher grades. Between March 2001 and March 2010, the number of administrative grade staff declined. But all higher grades grew in number, with Civil Service management grades 6 and 7 showing a 67 per cent increase (around 14,000 posts). This change in grade mix accounts directly for approximately 50 per cent of the staffing cost increase. Some 35 per cent of the real terms increase in staff costs is due to increases in salaries and performance-related pay. A range of immediate central actions in response to spending pressures has been announced, including freezes on pay and recruitment. But the longer term reductions in staff costs required by the 2010 Spending Review will be the responsibility of departments and agencies, and many do not have a comprehensive understanding of their own staff costs or skills in order to support this cost reduction activity adequately. The scale of staff cost reductions is unlikely to be achieved by natural turnover alone. Despite proposed changes to the Civil Service Compensation Scheme, the up-front costs of voluntary or compulsory redundancy schemes and early retirements will be significant.
Department For Work And Pensions Five Year Strategy
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Author : Great Britain: Department for Work and Pensions
language : en
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Release Date : 2005
Department For Work And Pensions Five Year Strategy written by Great Britain: Department for Work and Pensions and has been published by The Stationery Office this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2005 with Law categories.
The welfare state of the 20th century was designed to provide support from the cradle to the grave, but the changing demographic profile of Britain - longer life-spans mean that by 2007 the number of people over state pension age will exceed the number of children - presents a challenge to such a system of support. This plan sets out the Government's strategy of aiming for an 80 per cent employment rate as the best means of keeping people out of poverty, and allowing saving for a secure retirement. Such an aspiration requires the movement into work of a proportion of those people traditionally seen as outside the labour market and with complex barriers preventing entry into that market. Supporting these inactive people into employment will require carefully tailored support. The strategy outlines the approach in three major areas: (1) supporting children and families, including helping lone parents into gainful work; (2) helping those on incapacity benefits to return to work; (3) breaking down barriers to employment faced by disabled people, older workers and ethnic minorities.
Spending Reduction In The Foreign And Commonwealth Office
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Author : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
language : en
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Release Date : 2011-09-30
Spending Reduction In The Foreign And Commonwealth Office written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and has been published by The Stationery Office this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2011-09-30 with Political Science categories.
Around half of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's budget is spent in foreign currencies. In 2008, the Treasury removed the protection it had previously provided to the Department against exchange rate fluctuations. The FCO did not have the expertise or experience to effectively manage the risk of a fall in exchange rates, and that the Treasury imposed poor value for money conditions on forward purchasing foreign currency. As a result of a decline in the value of sterling, in September 2009 the FCO faced an overspend of £91 million on its 2009-10 budget (£72 million centrally and £18.8 million overseas), out of its total budget of £1.6 billion. It made drastic cuts to reduce this overspend. The FCO did well to reduce spending so quickly, which enabled it to live within its budget. However, many of the spending cuts made were short term in nature, and involved simply delaying or stopping some activities, rather than making lasting efficiency improvements. Not enough was done to monitor and measure the impact of the cuts and there is a risk that such short term cuts can lead to increased spending in the future. The FCO needs to achieve sustainable reductions in running costs of £100 million over the next four years, and sees the overseas estate as a potential source of these efficiencies and income. But in the past, high charges have had the unintended consequence of discouraging other government departments from sharing premises.
Department For Work And Pensions Public Consultation Reshaping Workplace Pensions For Future Generations Cm 8710
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Author : Great Britain: Department for Work and Pensions
language : en
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Release Date : 2013-11-07
Department For Work And Pensions Public Consultation Reshaping Workplace Pensions For Future Generations Cm 8710 written by Great Britain: Department for Work and Pensions and has been published by The Stationery Office this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2013-11-07 with Social Science categories.
In Reinvigorating workplace pensions1 published last November, the Government set out to explore whether there was scope for a new category of defined ambition (DA) pensions that would complement the defined benefit (DB) and defined contribution (DC) structures that currently dominate the market. Automatic enrolment and the single-tier State Pension will provide a firm foundation for saving for retirement. But if the current forms of DC pension saving become the default alternative to traditional DB, the pension income of future generations from workplace pensions will be more uncertain than for past generations. Over the last 12 months the DA project - a joint project between DWP and the pensions industry - has been exploring options in a middle ground. The Government proposes that the regulation of workplace pension schemes should not focus on the detail of benefit design but on what is important to the member: ensuring that any promise or guarantee, whether from the sponsoring employer or scheme, provider is delivered. This Government proposes to make it easier for employers to sponsor new pension schemes where benefits accrue on a specified basis (e.g. related to salary); and also to allow additional flexibilities for future accruals only within existing DB schemes, including the possibility of allowing a statutory override to facilitate these changes. The new flexibility will remove constraints from the existing legislative framework while still giving employees the certainty of a pension scheme where the benefits are defined (such as in relation to their salary) with the security of the promise being sponsored by their employer
Improving The Efficiency Of Postal Services Procurement In The Public Sector
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Author : Great Britain: National Audit Office
language : en
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Release Date : 2006-03-24
Improving The Efficiency Of Postal Services Procurement In The Public Sector written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and has been published by The Stationery Office this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2006-03-24 with Computers categories.
All public sector organisations rely to varying degrees on postal services, costing nearly £650 million annually of which £250 million is spent by central government departments. The two biggest spenders are the Department for Work and Pensions and HM Revenue and Customs which account for over half this amount, with ten organisations accounting for 95 per cent of the total. Despite the growth in the use of internet and email, at least for the foreseeable future conventional mail will remain essential to the way public bodies communicate with the public. This NAO report examines how public sector organisations can become more effective in their procurement and management of postal services, and identifies six main areas where further improvements can be made in order to realise an estimated £31 million a year in savings by 2008-09. Two accompanying documents are available separately: case studies which examine the use of postal services in five organisations (HCP 946-II, ISBN 0102937354); and a guide which sets out examples of good practice across public and private sectors (HCP 946-III, ISBN 0102937362).