WIREDGOV

• creating a Business Bank to bring together support for SMEs
• introducing the Single Tier Pension and Bereavement Support Payment
• increasing the value of the Pupil Premium to £900
• training 2,000 exceptional graduates a year as teachers
• introducing, for the first time, a cap on the costs people will pay towards their care
• continued funding of an additional 40,000 adult apprenticeship places focusing on the young unemployed
• opening the next wave of free schools
• delivering superfast broadband to 90% of premises in every county
• strengthening the role of the Care Quality Commission and introducing a new Chief Inspector of Hospitals
• delivering further City Deals
• legislating for the London-Birmingham Phase of High Speed 2
• continuing to deliver the national ambition on dementia diagnosis

We have taken some radical steps in the last 12 months to transform our public services, tailoring services around the needs of the user rather than expecting everyone to accept an expensive one size fits all solution. The delivery of free schools and academies, the launch of Universal Credit, our reforms to the NHS and the launch of the Green Deal all highlight real reform which is having a positive impact on people’s lives.

In the Mid-Term Review, the coalition government set out an ambitious implementation programme for the remainder of this Parliament. These Business Plans reflect those key commitments, setting out exactly what we are going to do and by when.

• we established NHS England, providing greater autonomy for doctors and nurses, and greater accountability to patients and the public
• introduced new free schools
• improved the quality and availability of Apprenticeship opportunities
• developed and implemented strategies to maximise new business opportunities and growth in manufacturing and services
• agreed a package of measures to deliver deregulation and reform under the company red tape challenge programme
• introduced legislation to reform financial regulation
• launched the Green Deal
• commenced a payment by results scheme for troubled families in the first local authorities
• introduced Universal Credit to simplify the welfare system and to ensure that the system always incentivises work and that work always pays

1. The Business Plans were launched in November 2010 by the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the former Cabinet Secretary, Gus O’Donnell and have been updated each year.

2. They are a major tool of public accountability and let everyone see how the government is delivering its ambitious programme of reforms. The Number 10 Transparency website reports the progress of every action, as well as a running total of completed and overdue actions, and an explanation, should there be a delay.

3. The Business Plans are an important contribution to the government’s transparency agenda, setting out the key data and indicators that departments will publish to help the public to track the cost and impact of key actions. The Plans have been streamlined, and have been updated to reflect the Mid-Term Review which was published in January 2013. The new digital format of the Business Plans makes it easier for members of the public to track our progress in implementing key policy and implementation actions.

4. Between May 2012 and May 2013 departments completed 698 actions, with 385 actions in progress and 102 overdue in starting or completing. 70 of the actions were due to start after May 2013.

5. For each coalition priority, the updated Business Plans also include the name of the lead official, the number of staff working in that area and the total spend. This will make it easier to cross-refer between the Business Plans and the organograms that each department has published on their website.

6. We are also improving the way that progress against the plans is reported. We have updated the Business Plans website, available at http://transparency.number10.gov.uk/transparency, so that it is clearer, more informative and easier to use. The information relating to actions will also be published in open data formats, so that third party tools will be able to present it in innovative new ways. The interactive website has been a popular way of accessing the Business Plans, with around 60,000 unique visitors in the past year.