Outsourcing Department for Work and Pensions health and disability assessments has not been value for money, with the costs of tests increasings by 65% in a new contract, auditors have found.
One-third of major Whitehall projects due to be delivered in the next five years could be “unachievable” unless action is taken to improve management of the schemes, the National Audit Office said...
Revenue & Customs loses an estimated £16bn each year due to tax evasion and fraud through the hidden economy and criminal attacks, according to a National Audit Office report today.
The financial health of NHS hospital trusts has “significantly declined” in the last year and is expected to worsen further to the end of 2015/16, the National Audit Office warned today.
Implementing the Scottish Rate of Income Tax (SRIT) will cost up to £35m and 2.6 million people will be liable to pay it, the National Audit Office has revealed.
The current system for dealing with complaints about public services is not effective and the government should create a central authority to ensure information is used to improve services, auditors...
A review by the National Audit Office has found that the new burdens doctrine provided £11.5bn for local authorities in the last Parliament. But DCLG should tackle the complexity and lack of...
Auditors have criticised the Home Office for not monitoring closely enough the impact of cuts on the financial sustainability of police forces and have urged it to become better informed about which...
The National Audit Office has called on the Department for Work and Pensions to learn the lessons from recent reforms to the welfare system in order to improve how it manages change and anticipates...
The latest set of Whole of Government Accounts show that the public sector’s net liabilities have increased by £624bn over the past five years, an analysis by CIPFA has revealed.
Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has set out plans to increase the transparency of government outsourcing contracts by introducing a presumption in favour of disclosing information, including...
The National Audit Office has published the Code of Audit Practice for local public bodies, which includes a duty for auditors to consider how best to gain assurance over pooled spending initiatives.
Costly failures such as the government’s botched award of the West Coast mainline franchise will continue unless there is an ‘honest appraisal’ of the skills gaps in the civil...
Delivering world-class public audit in changing circumstances demands that we think differently and experiment. Scotland is pointing the way, writes Caroline Gardner
Public audit needs to shape up and become more interventionist, writes Sir Derek Myers. The economic climate demands that it’s in the front seat, driving change
As the Audit Commission finally shuts its doors, there are a host of outstanding questions about practicality, cost and the value of public audit, writes Marcine Waterman
Central government and local authorities do not tackle underperformance in academies and maintained schools consistently, according to the National Audit Office.
Every year the Treasury gathers financial data from nearly 4,000 public bodies – from Whitehall departments to academy schools – to publish the Whole of Government Accounts. This ambitious exercise...
Academy trusts are not doing enough to mitigate the risk of conflict of interest between schools and sponsors, while some rules intended to protect public money are ‘largely meaningless’, according...
