§ Mr. Eggarasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list and describe the studies from within or without his Department relating to the effectiveness and efficiency of his Department together with the recommendations and action taken on those recommendations.
§ Mr. WhitelawMy Department has conducted and continues to conduct a wide range of studies related to the effectiveness and efficiency of its business. These include policy reviews, consultancies Rayner scrutinies, and centrally co-ordinated multi-Department reviews, as well as the day-to-day work of staff inspectors, management services and internal audit staff.
Such studies are all part of good management, which is so intrinsic to the task of the Department that it is not practicable to set out all that is undertaken under this heading. Recent measures include Rayner scrutinies into the work of the radio regulatory department, the nationality division, the forensic science service and the criminal injuries compensation board; multi-departmental reviews of statistical services, support services in research and development establishments, personnel management and administrative forms, and a resource control review of the prison services in Great Britain.
We are also undertaking work on extending the application of investment appraisal techniques within the Department, and introducing a computerised functional costing system for the prison service and schemes for accountable management in prisons. Internal audit and research and planning functions within the Department have been re-structured and rationalised, and other steps are being taken to improve resource management generally.
We are preparing our plans under the financial management initiative announced in Cmnd. 8616—"Efficiency and Effectiveness in the Civil Service". We have introduced a programme of annual performance reviews which will provide systematic information about the Department's functions and their associated costs and will enable progress in key areas to be critically appraised and priority objectives to be readily identified.
328WMy Department is also subject to the full range of examinations carried out by the Exchequer and Audit Department, the results of which are reported to the Public Accounts Committee of the House.