Area Summary: Efficiency of Public Services

Relevant Audits

Example of audit objectives

• To assess whether the BBC has effective procedures for delivering efficiency in radio production. (view report summary)
• To assess whether there are unnecessary delays in recruiting staff. (view report summary)
• To assess whether there is scope for grant-makers in the culture, media and sport sector to improve the cost-efficiency of their grant-making processes. (view report summary)
• To assess whether there is scope to improve the efficiency of cardiology services by comparing activity across Scotland and identifying areas of good practice where efficiencies have been made. (view report summary)
• To determine whether the ODPP can demonstrate how efficient it is and whether it has adopted good management practices. (view report summary)
• To determine whether the Agency can demonstrate that its security and institutional services are managed, designed, and provided with sufficient attention to their efficient delivery. (view report summary)
• To assess whether the Division had established adequate policies, sys­tems and procedures for the timely and efficient prosecution of criminal matters on behalf of the Crown. (view report summary)
• The assess whether selected emergency departments had adequate systems and procedures in place to ensure that services were managed and coordinated effi­ciently to meet patients’ needs. (view report summary)

Example of audit criteria

• We expected Correctional Service Canada’s senior management to have the assurance that services are designed and provided in a manner that demonstrates sufficient attention to efficient delivery. (view report summary)
• We expected Correctional Service Canada to have demonstrated sufficient attention to efficiency in the management of its human resources by developing and deploying a standard for allocating the minimum number of correctional officers to provide a safe and secure environment for its inmates and employees in its institutions. (view report summary)
• For line of inquiry one, the audit assessed the extent to which the ODPP could demonstrate that:
  • it has an adequate set of efficiency indicators
  • it has valid and reliable information on its services, costs and efficiency
  • its efficiency is high and improving
  • it reports clearly its efficiency to the government and Parliament. (view report summary)

• For line of inquiry two, we assessed the extent to which the ODPP could demonstrate that:
  • its information systems support efficient management
  • its management arrangements and work practices support efficient operations
  • it systematically identifies and takes action to address efficiency constraints. (view report summary)

Example of evidence gathering and analysis techniques

• Analysis of costs and methods of calculating and reporting costs for National Insurance, by Directorate, processes and units of activity. (view report summary)
• Commissioned private consultants to carry out an in-depth review of four key activities in the Contributions Office. (view report summary)
• Conducted interviews with frontline staff in operational units. (view report summary)
• Analysed the reported and forecast financial data over the course of the programme. Compared overall progress to date and each area’s progress against their targets, and forecasted savings and risk against the targets. (view report summary)
• Analysed the costs of grant-making for the eight grant programmes in 2006-07 by estimating the average administrative costs. (view report summary)
• Surveyed a random sample of 50 successful and 50 unsuccessful grant applicants. (view report summary)
• Commissioned Chest Heart and Stroke Scotland and British Heart Foundation to carry out focus groups with patients who had been in contact with cardiology services in the last two years. (view report summary)

Example of findings

• HMRC has taken significant steps to improve the efficiency of National Insurance administration but it needs to demonstrate more clearly that it is achieving value for money from the £343 million spent on this work. (view report summary)
• The highlights of the change achieved include the significant reduction in the number of staff deployed, action taken to require employers to communicate with HMRC electronically and examples of increased staff productivity in the Contributions Office. These are significant achievements, not least as there have been no significant system failures during the period of change. (view report summary)
• The BBC has explored its data on the costs of radio production for some programme types but has not made full use of its data to identify the scope for potential efficiency savings across its Network and Nations stations. (view report summary)
• Without evaluating the effect of proposed savings initiatives using its performance measurement framework the BBC will not be able to demonstrate it is delivering efficiency gains. (view report summary)
• The analysis of how the six organisations recruit identified three common issues: staff costs are too high; the length of time taken to recruit is too long; and the quality of recruitment needs to be improved. (view report summary)
• The audit identified potential improvements at HM Revenue & Customs and the Ministry of Justice that, if implemented, could reduce the internal staff costs by up to 68 per cent for the recruitment of junior grades while maintaining the quality of the candidates appointed. (view report summary)
• The grant-makers held little information by which to judge the efficiency of their grant-making. They had not routinely undertaken an analysis of the costs of their processes and the Department and the grant-makers had not agreed on common indicators to assess and compare costs or efficiency. (view report summary)
• The cost variations among programmes which had similar features suggest there is more grant-makers could do to understand the differences and identify the relative efficiency of their processes. (view report summary)
• For some programmes, more work was needed by the grant-maker to understand where costs fell and to evaluate whether the costs of grant making were proportionate to the outcomes delivered. (view report summary)
• There is scope to make efficiency savings of at least £4.4 million in a number of areas such as using less expensive tests, reducing length of stay, increasing day case rates and making savings in prescribing and procurement. (view report summary)
• There is variation across Scotland in the efficiency of orthopaedic services which is not fully explained by the resources available or by the types of procedures carried out. There is scope to use existing resources more efficiently and improve how these services are managed. Efficiency savings can be made by moving more inpatient care to day surgery or outpatients and by reducing length of stay in hospital. (view report summary)
• The efficiency indicators the ODPP has been using are not yet sufficiently relevant and appropriate. It does not have service or efficiency targets, and does not adequately compare its performance over time or to others. (view report summary)
• The ODPP does not have adequate information on the costs of its services and how staff use their time. This is a significant barrier to good management and efficiency improvement. (view report summary)
• The ODPP could not show that it had the right number of prosecutors at the right level to minimize costs while delivering quality services. It was not able to provide an objective, documented rationale for the current number and mix. (view report summary)
• Correctional Service Canada does not manage its purchasing of food, clothing, and cleaning products in a way to obtain best value at the lowest available cost. Its purchasing processes are behind those of other industries that purchase similar goods in similar volumes. (view report summary)
• None of the performance information currently tracked looks at economy or efficiency of operations. Further, the requirement to manage economically and efficiently is not included in senior management performance agreements, so there is little incentive for them to do so. (view report summary)
• The number of Crown attorneys and the overall staffing costs for the Criminal Law Division (Div­ision) have more than doubled since our last audit in 1993. Yet the number of criminal charges that Crown attorneys dispose of per year has not sub­stantially changed. (view report summary)
• The Division makes little use of numerical and statistical information to analyze the relative workload, efficiency and effectiveness of its Crown attorneys, and relies more on informal oversight by senior staff at each of the 54 Crown attorney offices. (view report summary)
• The Division would bene­fit from having information systems that would provide it with reliable summary data on prosecu­tor workloads, the outcome of prosecutions, the average time taken to resolve charges and other key performance indicators. (view report summary)
• At the time of the audit, emergency-department wait times had not yet shown a significant improvement and did not meet provincial targets. (view report summary)
• Over three-quarters of the hospitals that responded to our survey indicated that limited hours and types of specialists and diagnostic services available on-site were key barriers to efficient patient flow. (view report summary)

Example of recommendations

• HMRC should set guidelines to the operating units on increasing efficiency over the next three years. The guidelines should specify the areas of investment that should have priority; which underlying problems should have greater attention; and where operating units should endeavour to work more closely. (view report summary)
• Although there are presently very limited funds available for major IT enhancements, HMRC should consider how individual administrative procedures might undergo a more fundamental change over the longer term to achieve optimum efficiency. It should also consider the opportunities for further reducing the use of more costly paper-based processes. (view report summary)
• The BBC should:
  • compare the costs of comparable programmes to highlight areas where there may be scope for further efficiency savings.
  • identify the reasons for cost variations between programmes, establish whether variations are due to differences in efficiency and assess the scope for further efficiencies.
  • assess and document the likely and actual overall impact of efficiency savings initiatives on each of its public value criteria (reach, quality, impact, and value for money). (view report summary)

• There is potential to remove the need to hold academic qualifications for specific positions such as contact centre staff, and instead use alternative methods to test a candidate’s suitability for the role. The Department should assess the costs and benefits of introducing and maintaining alternative assessment methods. Where possible and appropriate they should consider using telephone interviews and the recruitment teams to assess candidates. They should use early assessment procedures to remove unsuitable candidates and reduce the effort of processing their applications. (view report summary)
• Organizations should collect key metrics on external recruitment including a breakdown of internal staff costs, processing time and the amount of rework that is typically required. They should use this information to design and implement a more efficient way of recruiting. They should use these metrics to develop a unit cost of recruitment in order to understand the efficiency of their current process and to identify and measure the impact of any future improvements. (view report summary)
• In order to understand their cost of making grants and so identify where they can make efficiency savings, grant-makers should collect information on the costs of grant-making on a consistent basis.(view report summary)
• Grant-makers should identify the scope to increase the efficiency of grant-making by comparing their grant programmes, or elements of them such as the application process, both internally and against similar programmes in other organisations. (view report summary)
• Grant-makers should review whether the costs of making grants are proportionate to the size of grants awarded. (view report summary)
• The Scottish Government and NHS boards should:
  • develop better information on costs, quality and activity to plan and deliver efficient services to a high quality;
  • ensure that benchmarking information on cost and activity is collected to allow NHS boards to compare efficiency. (view report summary)

• NHS boards should review performance against quality indicators to ensure patient care is not adversely affected by service changes. (view report summary)
• The ODPP should collect accurate and comprehensive information about the costs of its services and activities and use this to assess its efficiency and cost effectiveness. (view report summary)
• Correctional Service Canada should conduct sufficient analysis to determine that its deployment of correctional officers results in the most economic and efficient result. (view report summary)
• To ensure that emergency departments are operating in the most effective way to provide high-quality emergency care as quickly as pos­sible to all patients:
  • hospitals should identify causes of delays in patient flow and examine ways of reducing wait times in emergency departments accordingly;
  • the Ministry should provide funding to hospi­tals in a timely manner to enable hospitals to have adequate time to implement the funded initiatives cost-effectively. (view report summary)
   
• To ensure that the needs of patients are met appropriately, the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care should work with hospitals to conduct further research on the impact of low-acuity patients on emergency services and on what province-wide initiatives can be undertaken to encour­age people to seek the right treatment from the right medical provider. (view report summary)

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