Treasury Minutes On The Twenty Seventh To The Thirty Fourth The Thirty Sixth To The Fortieth And The Forty Third To The Forty Fifth Reports From The Committee Of Public Accounts 2006 2007

Committee of Public Accounts treasury minutes are on the following reports: HCP 113, 06/07, 27th report (ISBN 9780215034311); HCP 179, 06/07, 28th report (ISBN 9780215034373); HCP 142, 06/07, 29th report (ISBN 9780215034304); HCP 189, 06/07, 30th report (ISBN 9780215034489); HCP 309, 06/07, 31st report (ISBN 9780215034496); HCP 91, 06/07, 32nd report (ISBN 9780215034571); HCP 275, 06/07 33rd report (ISBN 9780215034786); HCP 43, 06/07, 34th report (ISBN 9780215034830); HCP 729, 06/07, 36th report (ISBN 9780215034823); HCP 812, 06/07, 37th report (ISBN 9780215034878); HCP 261, 06/07, 38th report (ISBN 9780215034991); HCP 377, 06/07, 39th report (ISBN 9780215034922); HCP 368, 06/07, 40th report (ISBN 9780215035066); HCP 892, 06/07, 43rd report (ISBN 9780215035172); HCP 246, 06/07, 44th report (ISBN 9780215035271); HCP 250, 06/07, 45th report (ISBN 9780215035387)

This inquiry took evidence from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (the Department), Arts Council England, Big Lottery Fund, English Heritage and Sport England on assessing the cost-efficiency of making grants; on supporting grant applicants; on sharing services and information; and on making applications on-line. In 2006-07, the nine principal grant-makers sponsored by the Department awarded grants of £1.8 billion, and spent £200 million on administering the grants and related activities. The grants ranged in size from £200 to many millions of pounds. The bodies held little information on the costs of their individual grant programmes and how these costs compare with others. The average cost of awarding £1 of grant across a sample of open application programmes in the sector ranged from three pence to 35 pence. Much of the variance in cost can be explained by the different objectives of the programmes and the needs of applicants. Grant-makers often receive applications which are incomplete or inaccurate. One way they could reduce the burden on grant applicants would be through inviting applications on-line. This would also help reduce the costs to grant-makers by reducing the amount of paper applications they have to process and the number of incomplete and ineligible applications. In the past, the Committee has recommended that the Department should take the lead in identifying the scope for savings by encouraging the organisations it funds to share accommodation and services. Little progress appears to be have made in this area. The Department has also done little to encourage benchmarking and the sharing of good practice across the sector.

Giving offenders opportunities to improve their basic and vocational skills can enhance their prospects of getting a job and is a major part of the Government's policy for reducing re-offending. In 2003, Ministers decided that the Learning and Skills Council (the LSC) should take over responsibility for a new Offenders' Learning and Skills Service which, after piloting, the LSC rolled out across England in July 2006. Delivering learning and skills to offenders is challenging, because the operational requirements of the Criminal Justice System takes priority, and because offenders often have other problems such as mental health difficulties and dependence on alcohol or drugs. Nevertheless, the new Service set out to overcome many of these longstanding problems. In practice it has not succeeded. The National Audit Office's examination of prisoners' learning records showed that there was not record of assessment for a quarter of prisoners. Learning plans are frequently deficient and not recording progress. Also, although enrolment is voluntary, more could be done to motivate offenders to take up opportunities. There is currently no core curriculum and inconsistencies make continuation difficult when prisoners transfer between prisons or into probation. The prison service and education providers are not working adequately together and there is insufficient research to allow informed changes. On the basis of the NAO report the Committee took evidence from the LSC, National Offender Management Service & the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills

The spate of mis-selling episodes that have plagued the financial services industries in recent years has caused widespread detriment to investors. Notwithstanding numerous regulatory interventions, curtailing the incidence of poor investment advice remains a challenge for regulators, particularly because these measures are taken in a 'fire-fighting' fashion without adequate consideration being given to the root causes of mis-selling. Against this backdrop, this book focuses on the sale of complex investment products to corporate retail investors by drawing upon the widespread mis-selling of interest rate hedging products (IRHP) in the UK and beyond. It brings to the fore the relatively understudied field concerning the different degrees of investor protection mechanisms applicable to individual retail investors – as opposed to corporate retail investors – by taking stock of past regulatory reforms and forthcoming regulatory initiatives as well as, more importantly, the conclusions reached by the judiciary in IRHP mis-selling claims. The conclusions are particularly interesting: corporate retail investors are in a vulnerable position when compared to individual retail investors. The former are exposed to a heightened risk of mis-selling, meaning that regulatory intervention should be targeted accordingly. The recommendations made as a result of these findings are further supported by insights emerging from behavioural law and economic theories. This book is aimed at researchers, lawyers and students with an interest in the financial regulation field who are keen to explore potential regulatory reforms to the investment services regime that address the root causes of mis-selling, and restore a level playing field amongst all retail investors.

This report (HC 814, session 2007-08, ISBN 9780215525468) looks at the work of the British Council and what impact the Council has working with whole societies, how it makes best use of resources and their efforts to increase consistency across the British Council network. It follows an NAO report (HCP 625, session 2007-08, ISBN 9780102954173), on the same topic. The British Council is a Registered Charity and an executive Non-Departmental Public Body as well as a Public Corporation. It aims to build relationships between people in the UK and other countries, through teaching English and running cultural projects. It operates in over 110 countries and engages with over 15 million people a year worldwide. The Committee has set out a number of conclusions and recommendations, including: that the British Council should be congratulated for its achievements in promoting the English language and culture overseas; the Committee believes though that the current teaching model, based on premium prices and concentrated mainly in capital cities, severely restricts its reach; that the Council's recent programme of change has had a negative effect on staff and their view of the Council's leadership; the Council is without a single customer relationship management system, which it is now going to address; that sponsorship and partner income has fallen year on year since 2000-01, and the Council should do more to reverse this trend; the Committee has identified a lack of consistency across the network.

This is the 53rd report from the Committee of Public Accounts (HCP 655, session 2007-08, ISBN 9780215524973), and examines how the rail industry, led by the Department for Transport and Network Rail, manages incidents on the rail network, and how passengers are treated when delays occur. The Committee has set out a number of conclusions and recommendations, including: that Network Rail receives only half of its funding from the taxpayer but as a private sector company it is not directly accountable to Parliament, the Committee states the Department should strengthen the governance and accountability arrangements; that the Office of Rail Regulation should review and revise targets where appropriate to take account of changing conditions and challenges; the Committee states that the Department needs to play a more active role in bringing together the rail industry, emergency services and other stakeholders to improve incident management; and further that the Office of Rail Regulation should make sure mechanisms are in place so that the emergency services know who to contact during rail incidents; that passengers are not receiving the information they need during delays and are not always told how to claim compensation for delays. During the 2006-07 period over 1.2 billion passenger journeys were made in Great Britain on services that arrived on time almost nine times out of ten. The Department provided £3.4 billion to Network Rail and £1.7 billion to the train operating companies, whilst passengers paid some £5.1 billion in fares, with the NAO estimating that delays cost passengers £1 billion in terms of lost time. This report follows on from a National Audit Office report (HCP 308, session 2007-08, ISBN 9780102953053).

This is the 45th report from the Committee of Public Accounts (HCP 546, session 2007-08). It follows an NAO report on the same topic published as HCP 241, session 2007-08 (ISBN 9780102952964). In general, violent crime has fallen in recent years, but mores serious violent offences, such as homicide and wounding, have not fallen as swiftly. The number of recorded crimes involving a firearm doubled between 1998-99 and 2005-06, as did the number of 15-17 year olds convicted of carrying a knife in public. The Committee has set out a number of conclusions and recommendations, including: that only since 2007 has it been mandatory for the police to record the presence of a knife at the scene of a crime; that the majority of victims of violent crime treated in A & E units did not report their injuries to the police; that the Committee believes that the Home Office and the Department of Health should jointly establish a national system for the automatic sharing of depersonalised violent crime data between hospitals, police and the Crime & Disorder Reduction Partnerships; that the Department has made little progress since 2005 in managing to distribute funding for tackling violent crime to the Crime & Disorder Reduction Partnerships; that the Home Office has a limited understanding of the nature of gang membership and activity and how such activity has changed over time; that only one third of the Crime & Disorder Reduction Partnerships had developed written strategies to tackle violent crime and that they also lacked the analytical capacity needed to assess the data they collect on violent crime in their locality.

The Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme makes financial awards to individuals who have been injured as a result of violent crime. The Scheme is administered by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, a non-departmental public body of the Ministry of Justice. Appeal against the Authority's decisions are heard by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Appeals Panel which is part of the Tribunals Service, an executive agency of the Ministry. Between 2000 and 2006, performance in dealing with claims deteriorate due to poor management within the Authority, combined with a lack of oversight by the sponsoring department. In the seven years since the subject was previously examined only 5 of 16 recommendation have been met in full. On the basis of a report by Comptroller and Auditor General, the Committee examined the Ministry, Authority & Tribunals Service on the reasons for the deterioration in performance