Annual Reports
Cabinet Office: Janet Paraskeva, the First Civil Service Commissioner, has said that Civil Service Commissioners will now regulate internal promotions, as well as all external appointments within the top 200 Civil Service positions.
Publishing the Commissioners' annual report for 2006/07, Ms Paraskeva said:
"Last year the Commissioners chaired a total of 90 external competitions and 9 internal competitions and saw some excellent and improving recruitment practice across government. We also identified three key areas where we believe further work is necessary.
OFT: The OFT Annual Report reflects on the key achievements made by the OFT in the past year, as well as setting out new performance targets for the future. The OFT is committing to delivering direct financial benefits to consumers of at least five times the cost of the OFT annual budget to the taxpayer.
In the OFT's first year of managing Consumer Direct, the service received over 1.7m calls & emails from consumers and the service has begun to influence consumer behaviour, making them more confident in dealing with suppliers of goods and services.
DIUS: The Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) has launched the annual report on the Science and Innovation Investment Framework 2004-2014, whichclaims that good progress has been made over the past year in implementing the challenging 10-year vision.
Science & innovation is now part of the new Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS), whose primary role will be to ‘drive forward delivery of the Government's long-term vision to make Britain one of the best places in the world for science, research and innovation and to raise the level of education and skills at every level in our economy to give the UK a competitive edge’.
CLG: The Minister for Housing and Planning Yvette Cooper has laid before the House a copy of the Planning Inspectorate's Annual Report and Accounts for 2006/07, which reveals that the Planning Inspectorate has met nearly two thirds of its targets this year, including its target to issue 80% of decisions within 10 weeks of the close of hearings.
MoD: The Ministry of Defence's Annual Report and Accounts 2006/2007 have been published and it says that the UK's Armed Forces are ‘sustaining a high operational tempo in order to contribute to security across the globe. At home, the Armed Forces continue to play a vital role supporting civil authorities including search and rescue, fishery protection and explosive ordnance disposal’.
In order to achieve operational success, the department has had to take a level of risk against other defence objectives and their ability to take on additional operations is ‘limited’. In addition, the continuing high operational tempo has meant that the Army and the RAF did not meet individual separate service or unit harmony guidelines.
Press release ~ Annual Report ~ Manpower shortage as pressures of war drive troops to quit Forces - Times Online
FCO: The Government's 2006 Annual Report on Strategic Export Controls has been published as a Command Paper. The Report describes UK policy and international developments in export control regimes, as well as including information on licensing decisions made during 2006.
CCRC: Applications to the Criminal Cases Review Commission continued to rise slightly with 1,051 applications in 2006-07 compared with 1,011 the previous year, according to the Commission's annual report. The Commission closed 990 cases, just 2% less than the 1,012 closed the previous year. This was achieved despite reduced funding and major internal changes.
During the year, significant changes were made to how the Commission categorises & deals with applications, with the aim of improving efficiency and ultimately cutting waiting times, whilst maintaining the quality of reviews.
ACAS: Acas has published its 2006/07 annual report which shows the number of people accessing good practice guidance on the Acas website at an all time high, with 2.7m visits last year. It also shows a decrease in the number of claims to employment tribunals with 84,039 cases compared to 109,712 in 2005/06.
Tribunals Service: Improved standards of service & planning for major structural changes have been achieved successfully in the Tribunals Service's first year, says its annual report. Almost 570,000 tribunal cases were dealt with in 2006-07, of which 254,000 were appeals against social security and child support decisions.
A further 166,000 were claims appealing asylum & immigration rulings and a further 104,000 were employment claims & appeals. In these three largest areas, waiting times for hearings were reduced in 2006-07.
Press release ~ Tribunals Service Annual Report and Accounts 2006-07 ~ TS Strategy: 'Delivering the future: one system, one service' ~ Tribunals Service
Home Office: Children and vulnerable adults have been protected from over 60,000 unsuitable people as a direct result of CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) checks in the last three years, according to new research for its annual report.
In the last year the CRB introduced a number of new enhancements including an online tracking service and a new quality assurance framework with the police to improve the efficiency of enhanced checks. It has also increased the number of data sources available to be searched centrally, including information from the British Transport Police and the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
Press release ~ Annual Report and Customer Satisfaction survey ~ Online tracking tool ~ Enhanced checks
HA: The Highways Agency has published its Annual Report for 2006-07 – meeting or exceeding all but one of their Ministerial Targets (delivery of major road schemes) which it missed because of a review of significant cost increases on some projects and the associated Nichols review and National Audit Office study of cost estimation & project management.
Press release ~ Highways Agency Annual Report and Accounts 2006-07 ~ Nichols review ~ National Audit Office study of cost estimation & project management.
Defra: Defra has published its annual report to Parliament on the UK Climate Change Programme and Environment Minister Phil Woolas told Parliament that Climate Change Agreements are continuing to cut carbon dioxide emissions in a wide range of energy-intensive sectors.
Climate Change Agreements are voluntary agreements with 51 energy-intensive sectors covering around 10,000 facilities. The operators of these facilities pay a reduced rate (20%) of the Climate Change Levy in return for meeting challenging energy efficiency targets.
