Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Second Report


Conclusions and recommendations

1.  We remain committed to examining each year the work of public bodies associated with Defra. (Paragraph 14)

2.  Once again this year we have not been specifically informed by Defra in advance (or, indeed, afterwards) of any of these appointments to posts in non-departmental public bodies or elsewhere. We recommend, as we did last year, that the Department put in place procedures to inform us in advance of all major appointments pending and/or made, in line with the recommendation of the Liaison Committee. (Paragraph 15)

3.  We regret that the Government did not invite us to undertake pre-legislative scrutiny of any of these Bills; nor did it make time available to do so. (Paragraph 17)

4.  In general, the Department's account of its expenditure was much improved compared to 2002. Nevertheless, we noted in our report that there are ways in which transparency might be further improved, such as by giving a commentary of performance against objectives, and by setting out the key financial data relating to each Departmental objective. (Paragraph 20)

5.  We will continue to pay close attention to the ways in which Defra spends money, and how it accounts for its expenditure. (Paragraph 21)

6.  We are grateful to Ministers for attending our meetings so often. We trust that our good relationship with them will continue during 2004. (Paragraph 23)

7.  Assessment of Defra's performance against its Public Service Agreement targets is a significant part of our work in holding the Department to account. We reiterate the view expressed in past Annual Reports that analysis of performance against PSA targets should be a major part of each annual Departmental Report. We trust that Defra will continue to strive to improve the way it reports its performance against such targets - and in those areas not covered by specific PSA targets. (Paragraph 26)

8.  We continue to be strongly supportive of the work of the Scrutiny Unit, which complements the work of our own staff. (Paragraph 30)



 
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