Download or read book Progress with VFM savings and lessons for cost reduction programmes written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2010-07-20 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report discusses how much the Treasury's Value for Money savings programme has improved value for money across government. The programme aims to achieve government-wide annual savings of £35 billion from 2008-09 to 2010-11. Today's report concludes that the Treasury's design addressed some weaknesses in earlier savings programmes, and departments have made some progress in their management of their programmes compared with previous spending periods. Nevertheless, departments' planned programmes did not contain sufficient contingency and it is unlikely that departments will achieve the government-wide target of £35 billion of annual savings, which fully meet the Comprehensive Spending Review criteria, in 2010-11. To date the NAO has reviewed reported savings amounting to some £2.8 billion from five major departments which are to deliver around 40 per cent of the government-wide total. The NAO has concluded that 38 per cent fairly represented sustainable savings (green); 44 per cent may represent savings but with some uncertainty (amber); and 18 per cent do not represent, or significantly overstate, savings (red). Common problems include the use of unsuitable baselines for the calculation of savings, a lack of transparency over arms-length bodies' reporting processes, and difficulties in demonstrating links between savings and performance. This report is accompanied by the NAO's reviews of the value for money savings reported by the Ministry of Defence (HC 292, ISBN 9780102965407); HM Revenue Customs (HC 293, ISBN 9780102965414); and the Department for Education (HC 294, ISBN 9780102965421)