Transport written question – answered at on 1 March 2006.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what baseline figures he is using for assessing progress on his Department's targets to (a) improve roads procurement in local authorities, (b) increase tax collection by the Driver and Vehicle Operator Group and achieve efficiencies through transactional services and other areas within the Driver and Vehicle Operator Group, (c) restructure and reform his Department and its support services and (d) deliver efficiencies as a result of Transport for London's plans and from local authority spending; what progress has been made towards these targets to date; and what the total efficiency savings achieved to date are for these targets.
The 2004 baseline figure for improving roads procurement in local authorities is equal to the local authority 2004–05 highways budget. As it is the decision of the local authorities how they divide their budget and only local authorities who choose to claim highways efficiencies calculate baselines, a precise baseline covering all local authority roads spend is unavailable. In 2004–05, the Highways Agency Local Authority Roads workstream achieved efficiency gains of £27 million.
The baseline for increasing tax collection by the Driver, Vehicle and Operator Group is based on the roadside survey of vehicle excise duty evasion carried out in 2003. The level of evasion was recorded as 4.8 per cent. In 2004–05 the level of evasion was 3.2 per cent. This decrease resulted in £77 million of efficiency gains.
The 2004 baseline for efficiencies through transactional services and other areas in the Driver, Vehicle and Operator Group is £723 million. This area generated efficiencies of 24.7 million in 2004–05.
The baseline for reforming the Department and the Shared Services Programme is £228 million.
The baseline for efficiencies resulting from Transport for London's (TfL) business plan is £2.25 billion. It was set in 2004-05. The baseline for efficiencies as a result of improvements in London Underground running and capacity from Public private partnerships (PPP) is £1 billion of the total TfL baseline from 2003–04. Due to the start date of the PPP contracts in December 2002 and April 2003, the most appropriate baseline for measuring these gains is 2003–04. In 2004–05 TfL realised efficiency gains of £119 million. An additional £46 million efficiency gains were realised as a result of improvements in London Underground running and capacity from PPPs.
The baselines for efficiencies resulting from local authority non-roads spending (excluding TfL) is equal to the total local authority 2004-05 budget for this sector. It is the decision of local authorities how they divide their budget and only local authorities that choose to claim efficiencies in the non-roads spend area calculate baselines. This means a precise baseline covering all local authority non-roads spend is unavailable. In 2004–05, the local authority non-roads workstream (excluding TfL) generated £19 million of efficiency gains.
Baselines and the basis for determining them were agreed with the Gershon Review Team.
Yes0 people think so
No0 people think not
Would you like to ask a question like this yourself? Use our Freedom of Information site.