§ Mr. Lathamasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will make a statement on the effect on his Department of the financial management initiative.
§ Mr. Kenneth BakerThe financial managememt initiative covers a wide range of management reforms to improve management in central Government in support of the Government's commitment to improve value for money. In my Department it has given added impetus to work which had already begun and has also led to new initiatives.
The introduction of the FMI has encouraged the further development of performance indicators and output measures for individual programmes and policies. It has also led to the creation of a financial information system covering the Department's running costs. These and other initiatives, such as a new coherent top management system
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Thousands Academic year beginning in 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 Great Britain Home/full-time initial entrants University 74.7 76.4 74.0 71.6 69.2 70.5 70.3 All initial entrants 142.0 146.3 155.9 160.9 160.7 163.2 164.6 Home full-time students Higher education 451.2 465.5 488.9 504.9 517.9 524.9 531.0 610 and improved financial management training, have encouraged a greater awareness among managers at all levls of the need for good financial management, both in the Department's own spending and in the spending of those bodies for which it has responsibility within the Government.
The effect can be seen over a range of the Department's work. Examples include the targets and performance indicators contained in the Department's chapter in the public expenditure White Paper (Cm.56), and the chapter on quality and efficiency in the recent White Paper on higher education (Cm.114). Control of the Department's own running costs has been delegated to four cost centre managers.