Department for International Development


Book Description

The Committee's report examines the accountability and management of the UK aid budget by the Department for International Development (DFID) based on its 2004 departmental report (Cm. 6214, ISBN 0101621426) published in May 2004. It comments on the UK's development record over the past year and highlights several areas where the DFID could improve its performance. Conclusions drawn include support for the Government's increased aid budget, the announcement on multilateral debt relief, and the progress being made to increase the poverty focus of the UK's bilateral aid budget. Recommendations include: the departmental report should include more information about the poverty focus of multilateral organisations, such as the EU; the roll-out of the Poverty Reduction Budget Support must be evidence-based; and the DFID should improve its 'traffic light' system for showing progress on its public service agreement targets.










Administration and expenditure of the Chancellor's departments, 2008-09


Book Description

The Chancellor's departments faced extraordinary challenges during 2008-09, mainly arising from the need to respond to the emerging financial crisis and associated economic downturn. The report concludes that it is very difficult to draw final conclusions regarding their level of success - too much remains unfinished business. It draws attention, in particular, to the new relationship between the Treasury and UKFI, and recommends that the Government considers whether the formal terms of the relationship need some re-definition in the light of experience. The report is particularly concerned by the dire results for HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) of a cross-Government staff survey pilot study. The Report calls for HMRC management to publish a clear and detailed plan to provide focus and direction to their efforts to re-engage with their workforce. Noting a rise in customer complaints and that, on average, only 57 per cent of calls to HMRC contact centres were answered during 2008-09. HMRC should publish more data to enable effective scrutiny of its performance against its targets, data which is essential for tax gaps to be closed and for the take up of the working tax credit to be assessed and improved. The Report is critical of the failure of most departments to provide accurate and timely monthly in-year figures to the Treasury. Other sections of the report cover National Savings & Investment, the revaluation of UK statutory ports and the performance of the Royal Mint.










Report


Book Description