Annex A
MATERIAL REQUESTED BY HOME AFFAIRS SELECT
COMMITTEE
1. Any conclusions and recommendations relating
specifically to the Home Office that arise from the current review
of financial management being carried out jointly by the Treasury
and National Audit Office.
We are at this stage unable to provide a copy
of the joint financial review, as decisions on publication have
yet to be reached, pending completion of the review programme
across Government. However, a short summary of the key points
is attached (see Ev 37-8).
2. The review by the National Audit Office
of the systems within the Home Office that underlie its reporting
of Public Service Agreements.
The report should be available at the House
of Commons Library—NAO Public Service Agreements: Managing
Data Quality—Compendium Report Ref: HC 476 Session 2004-05,
23 March 2005. It is also available on the National Audit Office
web site at www.nao.org.uk.
3. The Efficiency Plan of the Home Office
(as distinguished from the Efficiency Technical Note which I understand
to be a summary of this).
The Department does not maintain a single, unified
plan document for its VfM Programme, that seeks to achieve gains
worth £1,970 million across the breadth of the Department's
business and the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales.
Section 4 of the 2005 Annual Report, together with business area-specific
VfM sections within Section 3, was intended to provide a synopsis
of the Department's approach to supplement the information already
provided in the published technical note. Further information
on the main elements of the programme—the Police service,
NOMS and IND is included below.
POLICE
Efficiency plans prepared by each police force
will provide the foundation for achieving the 2007-08 efficiency
target. These plans will be prepared in the light of the overall
efficiency strategy developed and driven by the tri-partite Police
Efficiency Group (PEG) and its three sub-groups, each focused
on a particular work-stream—procurement, corporate services
and resource management (principally, productive time).
Increases in productive time, demonstrated through
increases in the front line policing measure, are expected to
provide the largest category of non-cashable gain. Measures such
as civilianisation and reducing sickness absence will continue
to contribute to increasing front-line policing as will realising
the benefits of new technology, bureaucracy reduction and better
rostering of officers for duty. Work to get better value from
procurement will be supported by the new centre of excellence
for police procurement (PEPS) and the potential to deliver corporate
services for police forces through shared service centres is being
explored.
NOMS
The Prison Service, the Probation Service and
NOMS HQ (together with the Youth Justice Board) each contribute
to the NOMS VFM Delivery Plan for 2007-08 through their individual
programmes. The Prison Service programme is managed by the Efficiency
Strategy Unit reporting quarterly to the Resource Strategy Implementation
Board. The Probation Service programme is driven by the Probation
Service VFM Strategy Board. The NOMS HQ programme is managed by
the NOMS Finance Directorate (Planning & Finance Unit) which
is also responsible for NOMS-wide VFM co-ordination and strategy.
There are currently over 30 projects or workstreams
in the NOMS Delivery Plan running for all of part of the SR04
period. The main areas yielding both cashable and non-cashable
efficiencies are improved procurement, making more efficient use
of the secure and non-secure estate, the departmental reform programme
and local efficiency initiatives. The main areas for just non-cashable
efficiencies are IT benefits, workload absorption, and sickness
reduction.
IND
The majority of VfM savings in IND will be met
through continuing to bear down on asylum support costs. IND aims
to reduce expenditure on asylum support by £450 million by
2007-08. In addition, IND has set itself challenging targets in
reducing its operating costs and improving the ratio of frontline
and support staff. IND met its 2004-05 targets in these areas
and is in the process of developing plans for future years.
Further savings in asylum supports costs will
be realised through continued focus on accommodation contracts,
improving the cessation process and realising the benefits of
the introduction of single tier appeals and the New Asylum Model.
More detail on progress in our main business
areas will be provided in response to the questions at Annex B.
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