Progress on Reducing Costs
Progress on Reducing Costs

Author: Great Britain: National Audit Office

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2013-02-07

Total Pages: 48

ISBN-13: 9780102981278

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In challenging circumstances in 2011-12, HM Revenue and Customs maintained its performance in key strategic areas at the same time as reducing its staff and spending. The challenge for HMRC will be to make more and deeper reductions over the spending review period while increasing tax revenues, improving customer service and introducing its 'real time information' project and changes to benefits and credits. HMRC made £296 million of savings in 2011-12, exceeding its target by 19 per cent. This is about a third of the total savings it is required to make over the four years of the spending review period. However, HMRC expects these projects to save £162 million less over the spending review period than when the NAO last reported on this subject, in July 2011. This is partly because its forecasts are now more refined and realistic, and partly because, as some projects took longer to start, the benefits will take longer to be realised. HMRC has strengthened how it manages its change programme in ways that address NAO and Public Accounts Committee recommendations. The Department has also started to address the recommendations that it should improve its understanding of interdependencies between projects and of the cost and value of its activities though it has more to do in these areas. At September 2012, HMRC was on track to exceed its 2012-13 cost reduction target by £29 million. However, the reduction in planned savings being delivered by change projects means that HMRC needs to find £66 million more savings than it originally planned through other initiatives

Reducing costs in the Department for Work and Pensions
Reducing costs in the Department for Work and Pensions

Author: Great Britain: National Audit Office

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2011-06-23

Total Pages: 40

ISBN-13: 9780102969740

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The NAO reports that the Department for Work and Pensions will have to make rapid progress in reorganising the way it operates if it is to meet its target of achieving sustainable running cost reductions of £2.7 billion while implementing substantial welfare reforms and a £17 billion reduction in benefits and pensions by 2014-15. Since 2007, the Department has reported reductions of £2 billion in its running costs, and initial out-turn data show that it met its target from the June 2010 Budget to reduce running costs by £535 million in 2010-11. However, the NAO has concluded that the Department must make progress quickly in order to be able to demonstrate that it can secure sustained cost reductions in a structured and strategic way. The report recognises that the DWP is only at the start of its new cost reduction challenge. However, without basing its running cost reduction plans more on robust information on the profile of its business costs and how that relates to the value of the services delivered, the Department is not in the position to make rational choices about what it should stop doing, what it should change and what it should continue. Recent cost reductions have been based largely on budget restrictions rather than on fundamental reform of working practices. Three months into the Spending Review and the Department does not yet have a detailed model of how it wants to run in the future.

Disease Control Priorities, Third Edition (Volume 2)
Disease Control Priorities, Third Edition (Volume 2)

Author: Robert Black

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2016-04-11

Total Pages: 419

ISBN-13: 1464803684

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The evaluation of reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH) by the Disease Control Priorities, Third Edition (DCP3) focuses on maternal conditions, childhood illness, and malnutrition. Specifically, the chapters address acute illness and undernutrition in children, principally under age 5. It also covers maternal mortality, morbidity, stillbirth, and influences to pregnancy and pre-pregnancy. Volume 3 focuses on developments since the publication of DCP2 and will also include the transition to older childhood, in particular, the overlap and commonality with the child development volume. The DCP3 evaluation of these conditions produced three key findings: 1. There is significant difficulty in measuring the burden of key conditions such as unintended pregnancy, unsafe abortion, nonsexually transmitted infections, infertility, and violence against women. 2. Investments in the continuum of care can have significant returns for improved and equitable access, health, poverty, and health systems. 3. There is a large difference in how RMNCH conditions affect different income groups; investments in RMNCH can lessen the disparity in terms of both health and financial risk.

Innovations and the Environment
Innovations and the Environment

Author: Yoram Krozer

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2008-05-06

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 1848001975

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book Innovations and the Environment aims to review the state of knowledge and to provide an empirical basis for the development and use of new technologies, products and services to reduce the impact of human activities on environmental quality. This is at the core of the debate on economics and the environment. The message is optimistic. Advances in thinking and actions make it possible to maintain high environmental quality at reasonable costs, sometimes even having a positive effect on corporate results. The progress is by no means automatic. Risk taking by entrepreneurs, managers and policy makers is necessary. The idea to write a book about innovations and the environment was born during discussions with Professor Han Brezet who was convinced of the importance of this subject for engineering students. This is because he has found many stories about the successes and failures of environmental technologies and even more on the impact of technologies on environmental qualities, but no reviews on technology and the mindset of entrepreneurship to explain the forces that drive innovations for sustainable development.

Compendium of GAO's Views on the Cost Saving Proposals of the Grace Commission: Individual issue analyses
Compendium of GAO's Views on the Cost Saving Proposals of the Grace Commission: Individual issue analyses

Author: United States. General Accounting Office

Publisher:

Published: 1985

Total Pages: 1320

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In response to a congressional request, GAO examined issues studied and recommendations made by the President's Private Sector Survey on Cost Control, better known as the Grace Commission, to determine whether: (1) the issues and recommendations made on program management and cost control had merit; (2) legislation would be necessary to implement the recommendations; (3) implementation efforts were completely underway; and (4) the savings estimates were realistic. GAO found that many of the issues studied and recommendations made by the Commission had overall merit and that, while many have already been implemented by legislative or administrative action, many more require additional legislative action to be fully implemented. However, GAO questioned the accuracy of many of the associated savings estimates, found flaws in the methodology used to develop some of the estimates, and found that the description of the methodology used in some estimates was insufficient to allow an assessment of its validity. In most of the instances where GAO questioned the methodology used, it believed that the savings were overstated. GAO supported management improvement issues more frequently than policy-oriented issues; however, policy-oriented issues constitute a large portion of the total estimated savings. GAO does not support restructuring federal subsidy programs and fixing federal health care costs to a percentage of the gross national product, and it disagreed with selected aspects of recommendations to reduce civilian and military retirement benefits. GAO support was most extensive in the areas aimed at strengthening federal management systems, federal automatic data processing operations, federal credit and cash management efforts, and civilian procurement and property management activities. GAO has made similar or related recommendations in nearly half of the areas in which it agreed with the Commission. Additional legislative action would be necessary to fully implement approximately half of the recommendations analyzed.

Microeconomics
Microeconomics

Author: K. N. Dwivedi

Publisher: Pearson Education India

Published:

Total Pages: 907

ISBN-13: 8131795330

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Microeconomics is intended to be a comprehensive and standard text for undergraduate students of Microeconomics. Not only does this book provide students with sufficient study material for the examination purpose, it also aims at making them understand economics.

Routledge Handbook of Energy Economics
Routledge Handbook of Energy Economics

Author: Uğur Soytaş

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-09-23

Total Pages: 620

ISBN-13: 1315459647

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Energy consumption and production have major influences on the economy, environment, and society, but in return they are also influenced by how the economy is structured, how the social institutions work, and how the society deals with environmental degradation. The need for integrated assessment of the relationship between energy, economy, environment, and society is clear, and this handbook offers an in-depth review of all four pillars of the energy-economy-environment-society nexus. Bringing together contributions from all over the world, this handbook includes sections devoted to each of the four pillars. Moreover, as the financialization of commodity markets has made risk analysis more complicated and intriguing, the sections also cover energy commodity markets and their links to other financial and non-financial markets. In addition, econometric modeling and the forecasting of energy needs, as well as energy prices and volatilities, are also explored. Each part emphasizes the multidisciplinary nature of the energy economics field and from this perspective, chapters offer a review of models and methods used in the literature. The Routledge Handbook of Energy Economics will be of great interest to all those studying and researching in the area of energy economics. It offers guideline suggestions for policy makers as well as for future research.