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Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780215561077
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 166
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Book Description
Additional written evidence is available in Volume 3, available on the Committee website www.parliament.uk/pasc
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780215561077
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 166
Get Book Here
Book Description
Additional written evidence is available in Volume 3, available on the Committee website www.parliament.uk/pasc
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780215561060
Category : Government purchasing
Languages : en
Pages : 68
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Book Description
The Government's over-reliance on large contractors for its IT needs combined with a lack of in-house skills is a "recipe for rip-offs" according to a report by the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC). The Committee found that as a result IT procurement too often resulted in late, over budget IT systems that are not fit for purpose. According to some sources the Government pays between seven and ten times more than the standard commercial rate for its work: however the Government does not collect the information needed to verify these claims. One of the report's recurring themes is the dominance of Government IT by a small number of large companies. The report argues that the Government needs to do four things to break out of this relationship: improve the information it holds on IT expenditure, without which the Government is unable to secure the best possible price for goods and services; publish more information about IT projects; widen the supplier base by reducing the size of its contracts and greatly simplifying the procurement process to engage with innovative Small and medium enterprises (SMEs); work in a more "agile" manner andmove towards the use of more iterative development methods which enable IT programmes to adapt to ever changing challenges
Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Public Administration Select Committee
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780215041500
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 47
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Book Description
Government IT procurement strategy is still lacking in its commitment to independent benchmarking of contracts with transparent data, failing to understand the risks of legacy systems, remains unclear about how to address the IT skills gap with sufficiently senior and experienced people, and must move faster to implement 'digital by default' to design better IT services. Government must build "in house" contracting capacity if it is to achieve its intended cost reductions and address the significant challenges facing it in large procurement projects. This follow up report commends the Government for its generally constructive and proactive response, but points out key areas where the intended course of action will not be sufficient to address "the scale of behavioural and process change required across government" to achieve its own aims of becoming an "intelligent" customer. The Government has also failed to respond at all to the call for an investigation into the charge that the large systems integrators operate in the manner of a cartel. The report concludes that a lack of up-to-date and accurate information about government IT made it impossible to identify potential overcharging, leading to the waste of an "obscene amount of public money". It recommends an independent investigation into allegations of cartel-like behaviour among suppliers, and that the Government work with "independent and specialist advisers and the NAO" to "seek to identify reliable and comparable cost benchmarks, and collect accurate information from departments in order to compare with those benchmarks."
Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Public Administration Select Committee
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780215043870
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 7
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Book Description
Government response to HC 1724, session 2010-12 (ISBN 9780215041500). That report contained Government response & further report to HC 715-I (ISBN 9780215561060) & 715-II (ISBN 9780215561077) of session 2010-12
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 0215071670
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 36
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Book Description
At the start of this Parliament, the Minister for the Cabinet Office indicated the ten-yearly census should be axed and the 2011 census should be the last. But in this report the Public Administration Select Committee urges the government not to scrap the 2021 census. Good figures on the people in the country are of fundamental importance to the statistical system, policy makers and society more widely, and the ten-yearly census gives detailed information on small areas. This report follows the National Statistician's announcement in March 2014 that she recommends that Government keep the Census in 2021, but that it should be conducted largely online, and that the Government should make much greater use of the data which it already holds in order to improve the accuracy of population estimates. The Committee supports the recommendation from the National Statistician, but urges the Office for National Statistics to do much more to make the best use of the data which the Government already collects, for example through the Department for Work and Pensions, HM Revenue and Customs and the Department of Health. The Committee says that the Office for National Statistics' work on the future of the Census has, to date, been limited, and recommends that the Office for National Statistics now sets out a much more ambitious vision for the use of this data to provide rich and valuable population statistics.
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee
Publisher: Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780215058706
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 92
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Book Description
In this report the Public Administration Select Committee recommends that departmental press officers and government statistics staff should work together much more closely to ensure that press releases give an accurate and meaningful picture of the truth behind the figures. Government statistics press releases do not always give a true and fair picture of the story behind the statistics, sometimes going too far to create a newsworthy headline. And the Committee says the ways that statistics are presented can be a challenge even for expert users. The lay user is left confused and disengaged. The Office for National Statistics website makes figures hard to find and statistics are often presented in a confusing way, for example, in formats which are not easily understandable. Other recommendations include: the UK Statistics Authority should work proactively to bring together and clearly present key statistics, from various sources, around common themes or events, such as elections and referendums, as well as broader topics such as the labour market and economic trends; the ONS website must be improved; the Statistics Authority should find more creative ways of communicating statistics, for example, through interactive guides; publication of more raw data in machine-readable format for experts who want the full results, not just the edited highlights presented in releases for a mass audience; government statisticians produce thousands of pieces of data on demand, known as 'ad hoc statistics' and these should be published proactively, rather than simply in reaction to requests.
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780215049452
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 104
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Book Description
The Public Administration Select Committee says special advisers (SpAds) should be 'men and women of standing and experience' with a legitimate and valuable function to play in government, but they need better training and support to prevent future problems and misunderstandings about their role and conduct. Ministers must recognise that they have responsibility, not just accountability, for the conduct of their special advisers, and actively ensure that they are fully aware of what their advisers are doing in their name. The Committee says that it remains concerned that this responsibility has 'proved to be more theoretical than actual' and says it cannot recall any minister ever resigning over the conduct of a special adviser, despite some astonishing cases. PASC says that the special advisers' role protects the impartiality of the Civil Service, by performing tasks which it would be inappropriate for permanent, impartial officials to perform, and helping to ensure that the Government's policy objectives are delivered, but that ministers must be able to justify that the tasks they undertake are in the public interest. Despite concerns raised by PASC's predecessor Committee more than ten years ago, the training and support for new special advisers remains inadequate. The Committee makes a number of recommendations including that the PM's Adviser on Ministers' Interests should be empowered to instigate his own investigations of potential breaches of the Ministerial Code, so that the Prime Minister is not able to protect his ministers from appropriate investigation of the conduct of their advisers, and that the PM's Adviser should himself be independently appointed and subject to a pre-appointment hearing
Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Public Administration Select Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 0215085841
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 37
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Book Description
As one of a small number of cross-government select committees, this Committee has gained a perspective on the state of Whitehall and its agencies which is not available to departmental select committees. Throughout the past five years, the recurring theme of their findings and recommendations reflects the importance of effective leadership in creating effective organisations. It is the positive or negative attitudes and behaviour in the people and the culture of an organisation which determines success or failure. Structures, processes and systems are important too, but preoccupation with these so often becomes a distraction from the real problems, which are about why people do not share information for the common good, collaborate effectively and trust one another. PASC took control of the process of selection of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) away from the Government altogether, so that for the first time Parliament has appointed its Ombudsman. They have also held many pre-appointment hearings for the Chairs of public bodies and were the first Select Committee to refuse to accept a government nomination for the chair of a public body. The Government was forced to re-run the selection for the post of Chair of the UK Statistics Authority under a new selection panel, and to propose a different candidate. They also hold hearings on PHSO's thematic reports, to interrogate and hold to account those who must respond to its recommendations. PASC has worked together effectively as a team despite political differences and the often controversial issues tackled
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 0215070895
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 52
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Book Description
How complaints are handled determines the quality of the relationship between consumers and public services. The best performing organisations welcome complaints as a way of engaging consumers. A failure to recognise the importance of complaints leads to insufficient redress for the individual, limits the impact that complaints have in improving services, and alienates the public. In some parts of public services, there are encouraging signs of increased attention to good complaints handling. However, Government as a whole cannot be said to be complying with best practice in complaints handling or adapting to the needs and expectations of today's citizen. Success depends on the right leadership. The Committee recommend that: there should be a minister for government policy on complaints handling; the primary objective of the Cabinet Office review of complaints handling in Government should be to change attitudes and behaviour in public administration at all levels in respect of complaints handling; in respect of complaints from MPs handled by ministers, replies must be accurate, clear and helpful and with no sharing of confidential information or delegation of responsibility for responding; the Government should create a single point of contact for citizens to make complaints about government departments and agencies; and the Government should provide leadership to those responsible for various parts of administrative justice, to ensure that there is a clear and consistent approach to sharing, learning and best practice.
Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Public Administration Select Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 021508456X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 45
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Book Description
This Report has been compiled so that lessons may be drawn for future referendums. On 18 September 2014, the Scottish public voted for Scotland to remain part of the United Kingdom. The roles played by civil servants in both Scotland and London in the Scottish referendum last summer were subject to criticism and controversy. The referendum campaign exposed two major issues: first, the question of how a unified Civil Service can serve both HM Government and the Scottish Government; and second, the challenges to Civil Service impartiality generated by the Scottish independence referendum. Particular concerns were raised about the Scottish Government's White Paper, Scotland's Future, which included a description of the SNP's proposed programme for government that was contingent upon their winning the 2016 Scottish Parliament elections. This did not uphold the factual standards expected of a UK Government White Paper and raised questions about the use of public money for partisan purposes. There was also concern that the publication of normally confidential advice by the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury called into question the impartiality of the Civil Service. The Committee concludes that parts of the White Paper should not have been included in a government publication. Civil servants should not be required to carry out ministers' wishes, if they are being asked to use public funds to promote the agenda of a political party, as was evident in this case.
