General Reports and Other Publications

NAO: In a report examining central government’s approach to local authority funding, the National Audit Office has highlighted the increasing difficulty faced by local authorities over the rest of the spending review period in absorbing the reductions in their central government funding without reducing services.
 
The spending watchdog recommends that the Department for Communities and Local Government work with other government departments to improve the evaluation of the impact of decisions on local authority finances & services.
Press release & links ~ CBI comments on NAO Financial Sustainability of Local Authorities Report
 
RUSI: In November 2012, a RUSI delegation travelled to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, for extensive, ground-breaking nuclear talks - the first of their kind by a British organisation in recent years. 
 
Over the course of its week-long visit, RUSI found its North Korean interlocutors willing to discuss - and in some cases actively debate - controversial issues such as: North Korea's nuclear & ballistic missile programmes; sources of instability on the Korean peninsula; leadership transitions in South Korea, Japan, China, and the United States; and regional economic development.
Press release & links
 
PC&PE: A report published by the Political & Constitutional Reform Committee calls for more autonomy & fiscal powers for local government in England. As part of its inquiry, the Committee produced its own code for relations between central & local government (published with the report). 
 
The key principles of the code are that local government should be independent of central government, able to exercise a range of tax-raising powers suitable to the needs of the local community, and that government, of all levels, should be appropriately consultative & accountable to its people. 

The code is intended to replace the estimated 1,293 duties imposed on local government today and the Committee wants the Government to use the code as the start of a national conversation
Press release & links ~ LGA - committee report on independent local government
 
PC&PE: The Department for International Development (DFID) is channelling more funds through multilateral organisations, like the UN & World Bank, even though they have higher administrative costs and at times limited effectiveness, the International Development Committee has found.  

The Committee is calling on DFID to carefully examine its growing multilateral expenditure and ensure that it has thoroughly examined other options, such as greater use of local, effective, small NGOs and sector budget support.  
Press release & links
 
PC&PE: The Government has not proved its case that GCSEs in the key academic subjects should be abolished & replaced with new English Baccalaureate Certificate exams, according to the Education Committee.  

In its latest report, the Committee says the Government is trying to do too much, too fast.  Introducing several fundamental changes at the same time and to a tight timetable will jeopardise the quality of the reforms and may threaten the stability of the wider exam system.
Press release & links
 
PC&PEEmbarking on an ambitious, perhaps unachievable, reform of rail franchising, in haste, on the UK’s most complex piece of railway was irresponsible say MPs in their review of cancellation of the West Coast Main Line Franchise competition.
 
Many of the problems with the franchise competition, detailed in the Laidlaw report, reflect very badly on civil servants at the DfT. However, ministers approved a complex – perhaps unworkable - franchising policy at the same time as overseeing major cuts to the Department’s resources.  This was a recipe for failure which the DfT must learn from urgently. 
Press release & links
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