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SubscriptionsAuthor: David Hencke
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Fraud-Spotting Data Analytics and AI Could Close £6 Billion Black Hole In Government Finances
The technology has already recouped hundreds of millions of pounds and could be extended right across Government, according to a new report by the National Audit Office
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Patel, Braverman and Jenrick Immigration Scheme Led to Unexpected and Unregulated Influx of 1.2 Million Foreign Workers
Nearly ten times as many entered the UK under under Brexiters’ unvetted skilled worker visa scheme as arrived in small boats
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£2 Billion of Fraudulent Covid Loans Remains At Large With Government Accused of ‘Passivity’ in Claiming Funds
Huge sums of money have yet to be returned by businesses five years after the last Conservative Government’s Covid ‘bounce back’ loan scheme was launched
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Hundreds of Local Authorities Remain on the Brink of Bankruptcy, Despite Government Bailouts
An ageing population and successive cuts by the last Conservative Government have left local council budgets on the brink, reports David Hencke
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Sellafield Nuclear Waste Cleanup Is 13 Years Behind Schedule and £20 Billion Over Budget
A damning new parliamentary report warns that “the site is becoming increasingly unsafe” due to the delays
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Family Justice in Crisis: Thousands of Children Waiting Years for Court Decisions
A National Audit Office report reveals nearly 50,000 unresolved family court cases in England, with some children waiting more than two years due to chronic delays, rising costs and fragmented oversight
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The UK Is Failing to Tackle Violence Against Women Amid Rise of Misogynistic Influencers
Reduced budgets, rising online hate and the lack of an effective national strategy, are deepening the threat faced by women and girls, warn MPs
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The UK Has Failed to Prosecute ISIS Fighters for Genocide After Allowing Hundreds to Return to Britain
Successive UK Governments have refused to pursue prosecutions against those suspected of war crimes abroad
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Government Urged to Wake Up to ‘Serious Cyber Threat’ as Report Reveals Some Systems Still Run on Windows 3.1
Risky ‘legacy’ IT systems make up 28% of the public sector’s IT estate
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Labour’s Pledge to Recruit New Teachers Not Enough to Prevent ‘Serious Shortage’
Despite the new Government giving teachers a 5.5% pay rise last year – pay is still one of the key reasons for recruitment failures, the Department for Education said
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Report Condemns Hundreds of Millions of Unrecovered Covid Sports Loans
MPs point to the ‘direct conflict’ for permanent secretary of department and the huge sums given to professional rugby clubs
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Eight Years After Grenfell, the Government Still Doesn’t Know How May Homes Are Unsafe and Has No Clear Plan to Fix Them
Repeated promises to clean up the scandal of homes covered in highly dangerous flammable cladding are still not being met, warn MPs
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Prisons Overcrowding Crisis to Force Keir Starmer to Release Thousands More Prisoners Early
The crisis followed the last Conservative Government’s failure to fulfil its promise to build up to 20,000 more prisons places before leaving office
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Women Launch Legal Challenge Against Watchdog Over ‘Bullying’ Employment Judge
Ten complainants, including doctors and a nuclear whistleblower, claim judge displayed misogynistic behaviour in employment tribunals – but judicial regulator refuses to investigate
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The Utter Mismanagement of HS2 Is Now Damaging the UK’s Global Reputation, Say MPs
A new parliamentary investigation details the many billions of pounds wasted on a scheme, the exact future of which still remains in doubt, reports David Hencke
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HMRC Failed to Stop British Man From Being Bombarded by Tax Demands for 11,000 Chinese Firms
The man was repeatedly threatened by debt collectors due to the scam, which followed a change in the law by the last Conservative Government
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Rising Cyber Threats: UK Government’s Vulnerability Exposed
Underinvestment has left Parliament, the Electoral Commission and the British Library open to attack from China, Russia and Iran
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Damning Report Exposes the Sheer Scale of Britain’s Crumbling Public Sector Left by the Conservatives
It blows a hole in the party’s claim to have ‘fixed the roof while the sun is shining’
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Special Needs Child Provision in Crisis as 40% of Local Authorities Risk Going Bust
There is a looming crisis of growing special needs requirements and threatened council bankruptcies, according to a damning new report by MPs
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‘Litany of Failures’ Exposed by Damning Report Revealing Huge Scale of Conservative Prisons Crisis Inherited by Keir Starmer
Just 5% of the additional prison places promised by Conservative ministers in 2016 have been delivered
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The Sheer Scale of the Conservative Local Government Auditing Scandal Is Only Now Becoming Clear
Billions of pounds in spending remains unaccounted for, with the National Audit Office unable to sign off the nation’s accounts
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Elite Paywalls or Social Media Misinformation: The Alarming Future of ‘Two Tier’ Journalism
“The UK’s news environment [risks] fracturing irreparably along social, regional and economic lines… The implications for our society and democracy would be grim.”
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Robert Jenrick Wasted £15 Million on a Contaminated Site to House Asylum Seekers That Can’t Be Used
Conservative ministers purchased the contaminated land and asbestos-ridden buildings, despite warnings from officials
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Heart Attacks on the Rise After Conservative Reforms Reverse Progress on Tackling Silent Killer
A damning new report highlights a series of failures under the last Conservative Government
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Lethal Grenfell-Style Cladding Could Remain on Buildings for Another 16 Years and Cost Tens of Billions More Pounds to Remove
A damning new report exposes the scandalously slow pace of removing all the flammable cladding still wrapped around thousands of flats across the UK
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Stop Blaming Individuals for an Obesity Crisis Caused by Big Food Companies, Ministers Told
A damning new Parliamentary report warns that the UK’s broken approach to food has created a “public health emergency”
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Major Construction Company Goes Bust Halting Labour Plans for Prisons and Schools
The Ministry of Justice has confirmed that 24 projects in the prison service have been halted, and two schemes involving new courts were affected
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This Innovative Proposal Could Clean Up our Rivers – So Why is Whitehall Ignoring it?
The plan could reduce pollution, create jobs, reduce imports, while also helping the UK meet its net zero targets
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No Lessons Learned: Peers Condemn Culture of Brushing Damning Inquiry Findings Under the Carpet
“‘Lessons learned’ is an entirely vacuous phrase if lessons aren’t being learned” warns new report after a series of deadly warnings were ignored
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How Tax Evasion Was Allowed to Soar Under the Conservatives
A damning new report reveals growing numbers of small businesses and retail outlets have used a series of scams to evade paying tax
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Holocaust Memorial Site Provokes Row in House of Lords Amid Claims It Presents ‘Very Real Terrorist Risk’
Lord Carlile wants the memorial to be moved away from Parliament. Since it was originally proposed costs have almost tripled
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Children’s Special Needs System ‘Broken’ – With a Quarter of Councils Facing Bankruptcy by 2026, Report Finds
Councils are struggling to cope with a huge rise in demand while standards in reading, writing, and mathematics have either stagnated or fallen during the past decade
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Sunak’s Government Did Not Know How Schools Spent £9.2 Billion a Year Allocated to Help Disadvantaged Children
‘There has been a lack of sustained progress by government in reducing the attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their peers’, a new report by the National Audit Office has found
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COVID Inquiry: What Went Wrong – From Planning for the Wrong Pandemic to a Failure to Make Any Economic Strategy
A damning first report from the COVID Inquiry reveals how three successive Health and Social Care Secretaries failed to put a plan in place to handle the crisis that struck
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New Porton Down Costs Spike 500% and Facility 15 Years Behind Schedule — and Nothing was Done to Prevent it
Ministers and civil servants condemned for lack of transparency and accountability with no one able to show actions “taken to hold leadership accountable”
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The Remarkable Rise of Surinder Arora from Troubled Kid to Billionaire Businessman
When he moved to England age 13 he couldn’t read and left school with few qualifications. But the work ethic he adopted from his mum saw him become a successful businessman
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Rwanda: Home Office Slammed for Having ‘No Credible Plan and Making Unacceptable and Avoidable Mistakes’
The Government has spent £310 million on the Rwanda scheme – and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says there will be no flights before polling day – meaning they may never happen
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Rich Claim Most Rishi Sunak Heat Pump Subsidies in ‘Concerning’ Trend as Government Delays Home Decarbonisation
Over 7000 people applied for the upgraded £7500 grant to scrap their gas boiler and replace it with a heat pump in the South East compared to just over 1,000 in the North East
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Court Case Backlog Worse Now than Before £477 Million Investment to Curb Delays, New Report Reveals
National Audit Office figures show MoJ way off target of reducing court case backlog by more than 14,000 cases and more than 6,000 are two years or more old
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Government Spends Billions on Border and Custom Controls Still Incomplete Three Years After Brexit
No final date has been set for when ‘the most effective border in the world’ will be fully operational, according to a new report by the National Audit Office
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HM Revenue and Customs Phone Line Failure as Customers Spend 798 Years On Hold
David Hencke examines a National Audit Office report revealing HMRC has not done enough to raise awareness of its digital services
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Department of Health Sets Aside £21 Billion for Negligence Cases – But Has No Idea if Situation is Getting Better or Worse
A new report has found the ministry spends £3 billion a year on maternity services but paid out an ‘eye-watering’ £1.1 billion in claims for 2022-23
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MOJ Slammed for Hiding From Parliament £500m in New Contracts to Companies Probed by SFO for ‘Deliberate Fraud’ Against It
Serco and G4S overcharged the Ministry of Justice for the same service – then the MOJ tried to hide from the House of Lords that it gave both firms new contracts
