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Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780215042910 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 76
Book Description
While DFID's total budget is increasing, the Department will both restrict operating costs to 2% by 2014-15 and reduce its administrative costs by a third in real terms, from £128 million in 2010-11 to £94 million by 2014-15. This report warns that capping operational costs and staff numbers may not reduce overall costs or improve effective delivery of development assistance. The International Development Committee also raises concerns that cost pressures are driving DFID to use consultants to deliver its programmes, rather than in-house expertise. The Department spends £450 million on technical cooperation per year. Much of this is good work, yet it was unclear exactly what this money was spent on, or how effective it was and the extent to which external providers were used. DFID needs to improve its assessment of which projects and services it should use consultants for; and assess more carefully the use of consultants to manage the Department's own delivery programmes. In its efforts to reduce administrative spending DFID might be 'exporting' these costs to other organisations, including NGOs and multilateral aid organisations, with higher real administration costs. The Department should assess the best and most effective way to deliver development assistance as it may be able to do it more cheaply and effectively than external organisations. The report recommends that the Department improves its tracking of and reporting on the total cost of administering its aid programme with the aim of quantifying how much aid actually ends up reaching recipients.
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780215042910 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 76
Book Description
While DFID's total budget is increasing, the Department will both restrict operating costs to 2% by 2014-15 and reduce its administrative costs by a third in real terms, from £128 million in 2010-11 to £94 million by 2014-15. This report warns that capping operational costs and staff numbers may not reduce overall costs or improve effective delivery of development assistance. The International Development Committee also raises concerns that cost pressures are driving DFID to use consultants to deliver its programmes, rather than in-house expertise. The Department spends £450 million on technical cooperation per year. Much of this is good work, yet it was unclear exactly what this money was spent on, or how effective it was and the extent to which external providers were used. DFID needs to improve its assessment of which projects and services it should use consultants for; and assess more carefully the use of consultants to manage the Department's own delivery programmes. In its efforts to reduce administrative spending DFID might be 'exporting' these costs to other organisations, including NGOs and multilateral aid organisations, with higher real administration costs. The Department should assess the best and most effective way to deliver development assistance as it may be able to do it more cheaply and effectively than external organisations. The report recommends that the Department improves its tracking of and reporting on the total cost of administering its aid programme with the aim of quantifying how much aid actually ends up reaching recipients.
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780215040077 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 170
Book Description
The Commons Public Accounts Committee publishes its 61st Report of the Session which, on the basis of evidence from the Cabinet Office and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), examined tax disputes. At 31 March 2011 HM Revenue & Customs was seeking to resolve tax issues valued at over £25 billion with large companies, some of which included disputes over outstanding tax. In this report, the Committee expresses concern about how the Department handled some cases involving large settlements and that there needs to be proper separation between the negotiation of tax settlements and the authorization of such settlements. The Committee also states that HMRC made matters worse by trying to avoid scrutiny of these settlements, keeping confidential the details of specific settlements with large companies. This effects Parliament's ability to establish value for money, compounded further by imprecise, inconsistent and potentially misleading answers given by senior departmental officials, including the Permanent Secretary for Tax in particular over his evidence on his relationship with Goldman Sachs, in facilitating a settlement with the company over their tax dispute. HMRC governance processes in these matters were inconsistent and it has now appointed two new Commissioners with tax expertise, and plans to introduce a new assessor role to permit independent review of large settlements before they are finalised. The Committee further states that it saw little evidence of personal accountability within the Department, and that a perception has developed that large companies are treated more favourably, receiving preferential treatment compared to small businesses and individuals.
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780215041586 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 20
Book Description
The Committee of Public Accounts scrutinises the reasons behind individual Departments exceeding their allocated resources, and reports to the House of Commons on whether it has any objection to the amounts needed to rectify the reported excesses. The Committee may also make recommendations to Departments concerning the causes of these excesses. In 2010-11, two bodies breached their expenditure limits: The Department for Transport breached its Net Cash Requirement by £335.2 million, primarily because of weaknesses in monitoring its budget for the operation of its rail franchises; The Teachers' Pension Scheme (England & Wales) breached its Net Cash Requirement by £11.9 million because the Department for Education underestimated the number of members that would retire in 2010-11 and overestimated the contributions that would be collected from employers. On the basis of an examination of the reasons why these two bodies exceeded their voted provisions, the Committee has no objection to Parliament providing the necessary amounts by means of an Excess Vote. Nevertheless, it expects both bodies to set out what actions they have taken to improve their financial management and avoid exceeding their allocated resources in the future.
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780215556240 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 92
Book Description
In the 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review the Coalition Government announced its decision to achieve the internationally agreed target of providing 0.7 percent of Gross National Income as ODA from 2013. This will involve spending an additional 2.5 billion pounds in 2013-14 to make the total DFID budget 11.3 billion pounds in that year. There will be a large increase in spending on fragile and conflict affected states and it will be difficult to ensure that every pound is well spent in such war-torn environments. When scrutinising DFID's accounts the MPs were also surprised to discover that the Pope's visit was paid for in part by money supposed to be for overseas development aid (ODA). The Committee expects a response from the Government as to what the £1.85 million, transferred to the Foreign Office for the papal visit, was spent on and an explanation as to how this was ODA compliant. The Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) announced reductions in DFID's running costs to 2% of the total budget. If achieved, this would make DFID the most cost-efficient development organisation in the world.This is to be achieved by a large reduction in back office administration costs (which excludes front-line staff) of £34 million over the CSR period. The International Development Committee supports the proposals to make savings in back office staff, but the MPs are warning that Ministers must ensure that reduced administration budgets do not affect the ability to deliver aid programmes on the ground. While declining as a share of total costs, running costs will increase in real terms over the next four years because the total budget will rise so much.
Author: Great Britain: H.M. Treasury Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780102969290 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 492
Book Description
Supply estimates are the means by which the Government seeks from Parliament sufficient funds and parliamentary authority for the bulk of departmental expenditure each year. In the course of the year the Government may need to ask Parliament for additional resources and/or cash. This volume contains 32 supplementary estimates and one new estimate.
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780215556653 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 148
Book Description
In this report the International Development Committee finds that the Government development fund - CDC - is not doing enough to alleviate poverty, does not focus on the sectors most in need and is paying its bosses too much. CDC, created in 1948 and formerly known as the Commonwealth Development Corporation, has operated since 2004 as a 'fund of funds' manager that invests in developing countries with the aim of promoting growth. It is owned by the UK's Department for International Development (DFID. But over half of CDC's portfolio is in four 'middle-income' countries - India, China, South Africa and Nigeria. It should be working in poorer countries and with poor people such as farmers and small business owners and accept lower returns. The report suggests a radical solution by splitting CDC into two parts. "The 'fund of funds' model is profit-making and leverages much extra finance and should be retained (suggested name 'CD Funds'). Some of the profits from this could fund a second arm called 'CDC Frontier' which would have a specific mandate to reduce poverty, and invest in pro-poor sectors including agriculture and infrastructure. There should also be greater oversight of CDC by DFID, so that there is greater alignment of poverty alleviation aims. Current salaries are excessive at CDC, and quality staff could be attracted for far lower salaries. The Committee wants HM Treasury to look into the use of tax havens, and for CDC to adopt best practice on tax.
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 0215073320 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 40
Book Description
Humanitarian relief to the Middle East is critical to long term stability in the region so the UK can be proud that it has already committed £600 million in humanitarian assistance to the grave refugee crisis that has arisen from the Syrian civil war and is currently the second-largest bilateral donor to that relief effort. It is lamentable that some other European nations have so manifestly failed to pull their weight in the Syrian refugee crisis and the UK should do more to secure significant contributions from other large EU nations. The overwhelming emphasis of UK funded humanitarian relief should be to help refugees remain in their own region, so that they have the potential to return home when this becomes possible. The bulk of humanitarian effort in the region should shift away from a focus on refugee camps to providing support for the majority of Syrian refugees who are currently residing in towns and villages in Lebanon or Jordan. This is something many donors remain reluctant to do; the UK must lead the way. To that end the DFID should use national plans as the basis for its assistance to Lebanon and Jordan, as well as launching a medium-term development programme in Jordan. A clear priority must be given to the urgent provision of education for Syrian refugee children to avoid the risk of a lost generation. The Committee also calls on DFID to become far more transparent about how much contingency funding it sets aside for responses to new humanitarian crises going forward.
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 021507078X Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 78
Book Description
Disabled people in developing countries are the poorest of the poor: if we are serious about tackling extreme poverty, our development work has to target them. So while it's good the UK government has brought disability on to the agenda for global development goals (1) - DfID must now lead by example and make effort to ensure the needs of disabled people become a clear and sustained priority going forward within its own development programmes. Despite enormous global advances in education and health since the turn of the millennium, disabled people continue to be excluded from the most basic of services. The Committee calls for DfID to: produce a disability strategy; appoint a larger team responsible for disability; and strengthen reporting processes; show much more ambition in its work with disabled people by targeting them and their needs explicitly; give disabled people a central role in its work; and promote attention to the needs of disabled people including making it an explicit requirement that funding reaches disabled people, especially in disaster and conflict situations where they are amongst the most at risk
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780215066015 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 24
Book Description
In 2010 the Department for International Development (DFID) undertook reviews of both its support for multilateral organisations in its Multilateral Aid Review (the MAR) and of its bilateral aid programmes in a Bilateral Aid Review (the BAR). As a result of the BAR, DFID decided to close a number of country programmes following criteria set out in the review. The Department published, in March 2011, the priorities and expected results for the countries where bilateral programmes were to continue. Yet 18 months and two years after that publication, the Department announced that bilateral programmes with India and South Africa would come to an end in 2015. The Secretary of State has not convinced the Committee that the announcement to end the programmes in India and South Africa were in accordance with the principles and process established by the BAR. Such decisions to end a bilateral programme or to start a new one should be made only following a Bilateral Aid Review, except in exceptional cases. Concerns remain about the timing of the decisions and, in particular, that they are neither methodical nor transparent, but related to short term political pressures.
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780215043948 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 120
Book Description
The UK spends approximately £1.23 billion each year on aid through the European Union, approximately 16% of the UK's total aid budget. Only 46% of this aid, however, goes to low income countries - a figure that MPs say is 'unacceptable'. Instead middle income countries bordering Europe are benefiting. Turkey has consistently been in the top five recipients of European Commission aid (223 million euros in 2010) as has Serbia (euros 218 million in 2010). The Committee is calling on the UK Government to press for funding to be diverted, away from higher middle income countries bordering Europe, to give greater help to the poorest people in the world. In order to make this happen, the MPs say Ministers must challenge and change the definition of Official Development Assistance (ODA). It appears to be being used as a way of fudging the figures to help other European countries meet the target for 0.7% of GDP to be given as aid. The Committee recognises that there are a number of advantages to giving aid through the EU but identifies a number of problems with the way EU Development Assistance works. Overall, the European Commission has improved its performance over the last decade and has recently proposed further improvements to development policy in An Agenda for Change. The Committee supports a number of these proposed changes, but it does have concerns that conditionality should not hurt the poor for the sins of their governments
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee
Author: Great Britain: H.M. Treasury
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee