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A progress update in resolving the difficulties in administering the single payment scheme in England

Author: Great Britain: National Audit Office

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2007-12-12

Total Pages: 42

ISBN-13: 9780102951578

There was a report in October 2006 (HC 1631 2005-06) which looked at the problems in administering the 2005 single payments scheme in England. This report follows up by examining the progress made in resolving outstanding problems from 2005 and processing 2006 payments. It concludes that the new management team has instilled a clearer sense of direction and virtually all the outstanding 2005 payments were made by the end of December 2006. However the Agency has identified 34,499 cases where there might be errors in the original calculations and the review of most of these cases will be completed by the end of 2007. In the interim errors in payments in the first year were likely to have been repeated in the second year and the Agency was not able to administer the 2006 single payments scheme in a fully cost-effective manner.

A Progress Update in Resolving the Difficulties in Administering the Single Payment Scheme in England

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 44

ISBN-13: 9780215521842

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The Single Payment Scheme replaced previous European Union production-based agricultural subsidy schemes from 2005. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, through the Rural Payments Agency, had chosen to implement the most complex option for reform in the shortest possible timescale, and the Agency had badly underestimated the scale of the task. This led to delays in making payments to farmers, erroneous payments and additional project and administrative costs, as reported in the Committee's earlier report (55th report session 2006-07, HC 893, ISBN 9780215036179). The Agency has estimated that there were £20 million of overpayments for the 2005 Scheme, and £17.4 million for the 2006 Scheme. The Agency has taken little action to recover the identified overpayments, with the risk that farmers may have unknowingly spent the money in the interim. Of 19 overpayments in excess of £50,000 paid in August 2006, the Agency had started the recovery process with only two of the farmers affected. Major changes made to the Agency's IT systems have enabled most farmers to receive payments earlier under the 2006 Scheme than for the 2005 Scheme. There has been a substantial impact on the costs of the business change programme to improve the Agency's efficiency, and the total project cost is now likely to exceed £300 million. In mid 2007, staff numbers in the Agency peaked at 4,600 and are not expected to reduce to 3,500 until 2010. The Agency is still not able to offer adequate advice to farmers on the progress of their claim. It was reluctant to specify targets by when such information would be available and when payments would be made under the 2008 Scheme.

HC 601 - Universal Credit: Progress Update

Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 25

ISBN-13: 0215090926

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We acknowledge that Universal Credit has stabilised and made progress since the previous Committee of Public Accounts first reported on the programme in 2013. However, there remains a long way to go. Implementation of Universal Credit so far has focussed mainly on the simplest cases and the Department for Work & Pensions has again delayed the programme. The completion date for the roll-out of its new digital service is six months later compared to when we looked at the programme only a year ago, and the Department now expects that Universal Credit will be fully operational in March 2021. The Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that there will be a further six-month delay beyond the Department's latest planned end-date. We remain disappointed by the persistent lack of clarity and evasive responses by the Department to our inquiries, particularly about the extent and impact of delays. The Department's response to the previous Committee's recommendations in the February 2015 report Universal Credit: progress update do not convince us that it is committed to improving transparency about the programme's progress.

A Second Progress Update on the Administration of the Single Payment Scheme by the Rural Payments Agency

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Accounts Committee

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 48

ISBN-13: 9780215542588

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This is the third report in 3 years on the subject of administration in England of the £1.6 billion Single Payment Scheme by the Rural Payments Agency and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (HCP 98, session 2009-10, ISBN 9780215542588), and follows an NAO report (HCP 880, session 2008-09, ISBN 9780102963182). The Committee states that oversight of the Single Payment Scheme is a singular example of comprehensively poor administration on a grand scale. With a paucity of good management information in the Agency and the complacent oversight by the Department having acted to obscure the true situation. A focus over the last two and a half years in bringing forward payments to farmers has enabled the Agency to bring its deadline forward by nearly seven weeks, but this is still six weeks off the deadline it had planned and a long way short of the standards set in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Also there has been a negligible attention to the protection of tax payers' interests. The Rural Payments Agency has spent £350 million on a cumbersome IT system that can only be supported at huge cost and which is increasingly at risk of becoming obsolete, with the data held in the system remaining riddled with errors and efforts to recover overpayments having been slow, disorganised and haphazard. The Committee identifies poor leadership within the Agency and a lack of attention by the Department. Each claim costs over six times more to process in England than in Scotland. Further the Department was not able to demonstrate an adequate grasp of the costs of administering the scheme. The Committee states that responsibility rests with the Accounting Officers to resolve this misadministration.

Progress on Sanitation and Drinking Water : 2015 Update and MDG Assessment

Author:

Publisher: World Health Organization

Published: 2015-10-02

Total Pages: 90

ISBN-13: 9241509147

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Despite significant progress in water and sanitation much still remains to be done. This report shows how the world has changed since 1990. It provides an assessment of progress towards the MDG target and insight into the remaining challenges. Section A provides an overview of progress against the parameters specified in the MDG target for water and sanitation in both urban and rural areas. It presents data for the world as a whole and compares progress across regions. The report goes on to examine trends over the MDG period by region and by level of service. It pays particular attention to the numbers of people who have gained the highest level of service in drinking water supply - piped water on premises - and those with no service at all who use surface water for drinking and practice open defecation. In order to understand the nature of progress it is important to look carefully at the way improvements in water and sanitation have benefited different socioeconomic groups. This report sheds light on equality gaps between urban and rural dwellers and between the richest and poorest segments of the population. It presents several new ways to visualize progress on extending service to the poor designed to reveal the nature of inequalities and give the reader insight into the great challenge that still exists in ensuring that progress reaches everyone. The JMP was established in 1990 and is celebrating its Jubilee Year in 2015. Section B provides a retrospective analysis of the evolution of water sanitation and hygiene monitoring over the past 25 years.

Rise of the Mages

Author: Scott Drakeford

Publisher: Tor Books

Published: 2022-02-08

Total Pages: 375

ISBN-13: 1250180074

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“This book commits almost every crime against heroic fantasy that I can imagine ... and I have not been able to put it down.” —Glen Cook, bestselling author of The Black Company A young warrior and his improbable band of allies face impossible odds as they seek to rescue his brother from the servants of the Fallen God. Emrael Ire is a student of war with lofty ambitions, despite being so poor his boots are more hole than leather. He and his talented younger brother Ban work hard to build themselves a better life at the Citadel, a school that specializes in both infusori Crafting and military arts. Their lives are upended when the power-hungry Lord Governor of the neighboring province invades the school with the help of a sinister sect of priests devoted to the newly awakened Fallen God of Glory. Many of the infusori Crafter students are captured—Including Ban. Though Emrael stands little chance against the Lord Governor and his armies, he’s desperate to save his brother—even if that means accepting the help of allies with uncertain motives, or becoming a practitioner of a forbidden magic. There is nothing he won't sacrifice to save his brother, but what happens when the cost of success is not his to pay? At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.