Ministry of Defence annual report and accounts 2006-07
Ministry of Defence annual report and accounts 2006-07

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Defence Committee

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2008-01-28

Total Pages: 108

ISBN-13: 9780215038333

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This report analyses the Annual Report and Accounts 2006-07 of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) (published as HC 697, session 2006-07, ISBN 9780102946369). The MoD's assessment of its expected achievements against its six Public Service Agreement (PSA) targets, which run until the end of March 2008, has deteriorated since the previous year's Annual Report and Accounts. At the end of 2007, the MoD did not expect to meet the target relating to generating forces and expects "only partly" to meet targets relating to recruitment and retention, and defence equipment procurement. The failure to meet the target for generating forces is a consequence of the continuing high levels of deployment of the Armed Forces. The Committee is concerned that the Armed Forces have been operating at or above the level of concurrent operations they are resourced and structured to deliver for seven of the last eight years, and for every year since 2002. Achieving manning balance in all three Service continues to be a challenge. Shortages remain within many specialist trades in all three Armed Services, but especially in the Army Medical Service. The report notes the failure to meet harmony guidelines in the Army and the Royal Air Force - another indicator of the pressure on the Armed Forces from the continuing high level of operations - and another target missed by all three services is for ethnic minority recruitment. The MoD continues to experience substantial forecast cost increases on equipment programmes, and the report notes delays in delivering equipment programmes to the planned in-service dates. The MoD faces difficult choices in the face of expected cuts in the defence programme and the management of a streamlining exercise to reduce civilian posts in the headquarters.

BBC annual report and accounts 2006-07
BBC annual report and accounts 2006-07

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Culture, Media and Sport Committee

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2008-01-22

Total Pages: 40

ISBN-13: 9780215038289

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A Culture, Media and Sport Committee's oral evidence session on the BBC annual report and accounts 2006-07 was followed up with some written questions. The Committee has concerns about the structure and content of the BBC reply to those questions. In particular it is not clear why the BBC Trust takes different views on transparency of employee costs and on transparency of talent (presenters or actors etc) costs, and why grouping of payments in bands for one but not the other presents data protection or breach of confidence issues. The Committee also questions why viewing figures for BBC3 are given in three-minute reach figures rather than the standard 15-minute reach used throughout the annual report, and why the BBC3 figures excluding repeats of BB1 programmes were not provided. On Freesat, a joint venture to provide a national satellite-based free-to-view digital service, the failure to disclose the contribution of the licence-fee payer is held to be unreasonable. The Committee would like greater clarity about who speaks for the BBC: the Trust or Executive. Future responses should make clear where accountability lies for particular issues, and the BBC should take a more constructive approach to responding to Parliamentary scrutiny.

Report on the NHS summarised accounts 2006-07
Report on the NHS summarised accounts 2006-07

Author: Great Britain: National Audit Office

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2007-12-11

Total Pages: 50

ISBN-13: 9780102951653

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In the last financial year the Department of Health made financial recovery priority and managed to turn the deficits of 2005-06 to a surplus of £505 million in 2006-07. The Comptroller and Auditor General is the statutory auditor of the financial accounts of the NHS and has the duty to certify and report to Parliament on them. This report is published alongside in the NHS Summarised Accounts to provide more detail on the financial performance of the NHS, how it moved into balance and the challenges that face it in the future.

Administration and expenditure of the Chancellor's departments, 2006-07
Administration and expenditure of the Chancellor's departments, 2006-07

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Treasury Committee

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2008-03-07

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 9780215513960

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This is the first annual scrutiny by the Treasury Committee of the Chancellor of Exchequer's Departments. The Committee sets out a number of conclusions and recommendations, including: that the Treasury should include within its' annual reports a summary of the results of the annual surveys of stakeholder opinion and the Treasury's response to stakeholders; the Committee recommends that the Treasury set itself a target to ensure that the Public Service Agreements finalised as part of the next Spending Review in 2009 or 2010 include a clear statement about the resources to be allocated across Government to the delivery of each Agreement; the Committee criticises the Treasury's failure to meet its objective for the appointment of professionally-qualified Finance Directors in all Departments by December 2006 and that a relevant accountancy qualification be described as an essental criterion in all future post advertisements; the Committee views the Value for Money Delivery Agreements across Government as disappointing, and wants the Government to develop programmes that measure quality of service and efficiency effectively; the Committee commends the Royal Mint's return to profitability but is concerned about the ambitious target set for next year; that the Office of Government Commerce has failed to publish a regular annual report; the Committee expresses surprise that HM Revenue and Customs had approved a 60% increase in senior civil service bonus payments over a period of poor performance and headcount reductions, also the Committee highlights the problems experienced in VAT registrations and the failure of HMRC to meet its processing target of VAT receipts as well as poor administration of tax credits.

Top Pay in the Public Sector
Top Pay in the Public Sector

Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Public Administration Select Committee

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 112

ISBN-13: 9780215542861

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A report that calls for a Top Pay Commission to 'name and shame' public sector organizations that pay excessive salaries to their top officials.

British Foreign and Defence Policy Since 1945
British Foreign and Defence Policy Since 1945

Author: Robert Self

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2010-06-23

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0230313531

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Foreign policy has dominated successive governments' time in office and cast a consistently long shadow over British politics in the period since 1945. Robert Self provides a readable and incisive assessment of the key issues and events from the retreat from empire through the cold war period to Humanitarian Intervention and the debacle in Iraq.