The Cabinet Office has meanwhile extended negotiations with CSC over the NHS contract until 31 August, a year-after the coalition government said it had resolved its NHS IT problems.
Computer Weekly understands finance director Neil Malcolm left within the last month. CSC refused to discuss the nature of his departure.
A CSC spokeswoman said: "It is company policy not to comment on internal matters or matters relating to staff departures."
$25m of "Intentional irregularities" were found in the accounts of CSC's £3bn NHS IT contract after a year-long investigation by independent auditors, said CSC in a financial statement last week.
"Certain CSC finance employees based in the United Kingdom were aware prior to fiscal 2012 of the aforementioned errors, but those employees failed to appropriately correct the errors.
"Therefore, the Company has classified these errors as intentional. As a result, certain personnel have been suspended and additional disciplinary actions are being considered."
The errors had overstated CSC's income from the NHS contract by $24m after failing to account for costs.
Andy Thomson, vice president of international finance at CSC, refused to confirm whether Malcolm's departure was related to any fraudulent activity. He refused to answer any questions about the matter.
Investigators had found other accounting problems with the NHS contract, on which CSC wrote off $1.5bn last year after its continued failure to meet a 2007 deadline to deliver computer systems to health bodies over two-thirds of England. The investigation was ongoing. CSC did not expect further revelations would involve amounts large enough to dent its financials.
The US SEC probe, which is also ongoing, led to a string of revelations about intentional accounting errors in CSC's Nordics, Australia and Americas businesses. CSC Denmark CEO Carsten Lind resigned as details of the accounting problems broke last Autumn. Hundreds of redundancies have followed in the wake of a major Danish public sector IT failure and the loss of CSC's largest private sector customer in the region, the telecoms firm TDC, to Indian outsourcer Tata.
CSC is making approximately 1,100 redundancies in the UK, thought to be about 15 per cent of its local workforce, as it stands down teams that had been working on the NHS contract and absorbs the shock of financial results that recorded a $4.3bn world-wide loss last week.
The majority of the loss was attributed to the NHS write-off and a $2.7bn loss of goodwill over numerous acquisitions CSC had made in the last 10 years. $269m was attributed to a settlement CSC made with the US Army over its Logistics Modernisation Programme, one of 11 ERP projects that caused trouble for the US Department of Defence.
Neil Malcolm was unavailable for comment.
Money skills programme to help Neet young people goes national - Children & Young People Now
A financial education programme for young people not in employment, education or training (Neet) is expanding following successful pilot projects.
Many young people do not have a household budget, so Barclays Money Skills aims to give them the skills to manage their finances. Image: Barclays
Barclays is linking up with a consortium of youth and information charities – the National Youth Agency, Citizens Advice, Rathbone UK, UK Youth, YouthNet, and Youth Access – to roll out the Money Skills champions programme.
The project aims to recruit young people who are classed as Neet, giving them skills and “money know-how” training to then go on to share the knowledge with their peer group.
Eventually it is hoped that 5,000 young people will be trained as “champions”, who can then go on to share financial capability skills with up to 100,000 other young people.
Fiona Blacke, NYA chief executive, said: “Young people are facing significant challenges and want to reach out to people they trust for help and advice.
“It is essential that the information they receive is accurate, to ensure they are appropriately equipped to negotiate financial problems and money management issues.
“The programme will prepare young people who need it most with skills and knowledge to support themselves and their friends."
Pilot projects for the programme have been completed in eight areas across England.
More than 100 of the 450 adult support workers that the project needs to roll out nationwide have so far been recruited.
Michelle Smith, head of community affairs in the UK for Barclays, said: “It is vital that young people are given the best start in life.
“Having good money management skills, particularly when faced with a constrained budget and trying to be financially independent for the first time, is vital to enhancing their life opportunities and preparing them for a secure future.”
Money spent on infrastructure creates jobs now, invests in the future - Seattle Times
The federal government must spend more money to maintain, repair and build the roads, bridges, power grid and other infrastructure that support the economy.
Yes, put it on the credit card. These are basic investments in the country's future and the working lives of generations that will put them to productive use. Prepare for better times ahead.
Everyone is looking over their shoulder ducking debris from the explosion of the housing bubble, but grossly inflated inventories are diminishing. Prices are settling into a new normal. Defaults are easing and household debt is being paid down. A measure of financial sobriety returned.
Job numbers are still scary. Unemployment nudged up in May, and hinted at a slowdown. But not without surprises, especially in manufacturing. America is building cars again.
Put the construction sector back to work on public projects. If one can ignore the asinine behavior of Donald Trump and the birthers, and other tactically motivated prattle — is President Obama a socialist? — there are threads of agreement.
Even Libertarian Ron Paul supports spending on infrastructure. Republican Mitt Romney has no readily discernible opinion, as usual, though he seems partial to more military spending.
A divided Congress refuses to budge on putting people to work. Republicans are in pure gridlock mode. Befitting a complete lack of interest in responsible governance, the obfuscating GOP rhetoric is about cutting debt and ever-lower taxes.
The ready lesson for America goes back to the Great Depression, and the infusion of cash and imagination that fueled a recovery and decades of growth.
The Pacific Northwest benefits from and brags about its low-cost, green hydro power. Ask all those closet socialists in Eastern Washington about the transformation with public investments in rural electrification, water, irrigation, roads and schools. The tax benefits, subsidies and write-offs continue today.
Grand Coulee Dam and the Columbia Basin Project changed the region. Variations on those themes around the country helped the nation recover and prosper.
No one dictates what is carried across those highways or what new technology is powered with all that energy. Farm to market is just as likely to be a path to a port for delivery overseas.
Economist Robert H. Frank of Cornell University observes a practical aspect of timely investments. Saving money. In a The New York Times column, Frank notes the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials reports substandard roads cause $335 in annual vehicle damage per vehicle on the road.
Infrastructure investment is basic for government, Frank told me in a telephone call. No one expects private industry to step in and do the work, he said. The money comes from the public purse.
Put people to work building the infrastructure for a better tomorrow. Wages go right back into the economy. The velocity of those dollars is enormous. The money is spent on shelter, food, transportation, health care, education and other basics.
Spending money to save and make money is hardly a foreign concept to household budgets. The same basic thinking applies to the false economy of slashing social-service budgets in tough times. Ideologically driven austerity on unemployment insurance, public health and housing and mental-health care only cause other government and social costs to soar. Think emergency room visits, street crime, law enforcement and jail costs.
The nation cannot afford the mindless diversions that pass for political debate — purposeful distractions to avoid accountability for real plans.
Invest tax dollars in infrastructure, and track the immediate help to the economy and the predictable long-term benefits. Keep America competitive by having a country that functions.
Lance Dickie's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His email address is ldickie@seattletimes.com
Wash. audit: Allocate more money to classrooms - KOMO News
The performance audit released Wednesday included detailed comparisons among school districts of similar size, as well as suggestions about how some are spending more money in the classroom than others.
The audit noted that moving just one percent of school spending from administrative offices to the classroom would be enough to pay for more than 1,000 teachers statewide.
Among the cost-saving suggestions were: Buy fuel for school buses in bulk, use more USDA surplus food in the lunchroom, and look at having some services provided by the private sector.
It also suggests cutting staffing dollars by making such changes as hiring licensed practical nurses instead of registered nurses for school infirmaries, sharing costs with neighboring districts, and contracting with the state or education service districts for some things.
Although many of the cost differences among districts involve choices, some are out of their control, such as how many special education students they serve.
The state auditor decided to do this performance review because taking a closer look at education spending has been repeatedly identified by citizens and lawmakers as a high priority, said department spokeswoman Mindy Chambers. About 43 percent of the state budget is spent on K-12 education.
Auditor Brian Sonntag wanted the report to be practical for school districts and informative for lawmakers, while not trying to offer a one-size-fits-all approach, Chambers said.
The audit dings state school officials for overstating how much money is spent on classroom instruction by adding in a second number called teaching support.
The approach implies Washington spends 70 percent of school dollars in the classroom, which would be more than any other state in the nation. The federal government paints a different picture.
Washington and 11 other states spent about 60 percent of school dollars in classrooms, according to a 2009 comparison by the National Center for Education Statistics. Another 18 states spent more and 20 spent less. Washington's numbers have improved slightly since then, but no more recent national comparisons are available.
The rest of the money goes to transportation, food, nursing, counseling, outside help for special education students, administration and a variety of central district office functions.
The audit recommends the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction improve its transparency by taking the federal approach and use just the dollars that pay for teaching when it reports expenditures for classroom instruction.
Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn responded to that section of the audit by saying the office was already doing this on some reports and would look into the possibility of changing others.
The audit also urged the office to maintain the database the auditor's office created for the purpose of the study, saying it would help districts save more money if they could continue to see their operations compared to their peers.
Dorn said he would discuss the idea with his department's data management committee and see if they think it would be worthwhile to find the money to keep track of this information in the future.
School reform advocate Liv Finne commended the auditor's report for its wealth of information and practical advice for school districts.
Digging a little deeper and reading between the pages can reveal a lot about the choices individual school districts are making, said Finne, director of the Center for Education at the Washington Policy Center.
For example, she found it particularly interesting that Seattle Public Schools spends 59.7 percent on teaching, while many neighboring districts push a lot higher percentage of their money toward the classroom.
The Bellevue School District, for example, puts 65.6 percent of its dollars into teaching and Lake Washington directs 65.5 percent toward learning.
"That instruction number is very important," Finne said. "It reflects who is influencing allocation decisions in the district and what the priorities are in the district. Clearly they're not making instruction the priority."
She notes that most private schools and public charter schools do an even better job at this, because they do not have much of a central office staff to support and private schools do not have to pay for transportation.
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The Best Way to Manage Money As a Couple - Huffington Post
If you're in a relationship -- or have ever been in a relationship -- you know that managing money as a twosome can be tricky.
We get questions every day about how to divide money and who should pay for what. So when rather controversial research came out suggesting there's a whole new way to divide your money as a couple, we perked up. Especially since, in many traditional American households, the husband manages the investments while the wife manages daily budgeting and spending... and that, researchers say, might be all wrong.
The Findings
In the 2009 National Marriage Project report "The State of Our Unions," Ronald T. Wilcox, faculty fellow at the National Marriage Project and professor of business administration at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, presents evidence that a non-traditional arrangement of a household's finances might be best: That is, the woman invests and the man determines the day-to-day budgeting and spending.
According to Wilcox, we develop feelings of ownership over household tasks, from who empties the dishwasher to who pays the cable bill. Because of this, couples tend to settle into a routine of who-does-what without necessarily considering who might be more effective at what -- and he finds that women would be more effective as the family investors for the following reasons:
1. Men Are Overconfident
"[Men] tend to trade stocks and bonds more actively because they are convinced they know what the next market movement will be," writes Wilcox. "What is likely to go up, and what is likely to go down. In so doing, they incur a host of transaction costs associated with trading -- from commissions and taxes to bid-ask spreads -- but do not pick assets any better than women."
But women, who are well-known to lack confidence around investing, make fewer active trades, so they're able to generate "risk-adjusted returns," meaning the returns they can't get when someone won't hold onto the stock long enough. In other words, by not trading all the time, their money tends to make more money.
2. Women Look at the Upfront Costs
Women are less likely to pay exorbitant fees with the confidence their investment will earn it back (or to pursue the expensive hot stock of the moment), which means that they tend to select good, safe mutual and index funds with low fees. This is particularly important because the bulk of household retirement funds are invested in mutual and index funds, and we all know that retirement should be a core concern for women, who have an exclusive set of challenges.
3. Men Don't Take Advice
If there's a retirement planning seminar (or an introductory retirement article, for that matter), Wilcox writes that women are much more likely to take advantage. Because they don't tend to have the same innate confidence in their own knowledge and abilities as their male counterparts, they're more willing to both take and use investing advice.
4. Men Make Better Budgeters
"Men lose money at the stockbroker's office; women lose it at the shopping mall," argues Wilcox. Thanks to their usual appetite for riskier financial tasks and disinclination toward household budgeting, he says, men might actually be more conscientious, effective holders of the purse strings.
"Even if they don't enjoy doing it, it is that natural aversion to the activity that is likely to lead to stronger household balance sheets," he explains. In other words, because they like to get in and out, men, for example, may not spring for a cute new sponge or fresh flowers at the grocery store, thereby driving down your bill.
(And he may have a point: Overspending is one of the seven mistakes women make more than men.)
So, Who Should Do What?
We've heard before that women could make the best investors, but the idea that men might be better-suited to household budgeting is a new one.
In the same report, Jeffrey Dew, faculty fellow at the National Marriage Project and assistant professor of Family, Consumer, and Human Development at Utah State University, writes that his new research shows disagreements about money to be the most accurate predictor of divorce, and when a spouse doesn't believe his or her partner handles money well, reporting marital unhappiness is more likely.
In fact, a May 2012 study sponsored by TD Ameritrade, "Till Debt Do Us Part," showed that feeling like your partner spent money foolishly increased the likelihood of divorce 45% for both men and women.
But forget men, women and gender for a minute: It stands to reason that if each of us took on the financial tasks for which we're best suited (and "none" is not an option) within our relationships, we would be happier overall.
What would you be best suited to doing -- and what would you assign out to a partner?
More From LearnVest
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Money looming even larger over Nov. election - CBS News
(CBS News) WASHINGTON -- President Obama is halfway through a two-day fundraising swing through California.
His trip underlines the importance of money in the 2012 campaign.
It's also being criticized by Republicans who say the president is spending too much time with celebrity Democrats.
The money-raising trip took him to San Francisco and Los Angeles, two towns where he hasn't been a stranger in recent weeks and months, spending plenty of time with the wealthy and famous in the entertainment and tech communities.
But his campaign tweeted Thursday that 98 percent of its donations in May were less than $250.
Either way, it's all about the money.
Mr. Obama got a warm welcome from campaign donors in the Los Angeles gay community Wednesday night, a group he considers crucial to his re-election prospects.
"I could not be prouder of the work we've done on behalf of the LGBT community," Mr. Obama said.
During his speech, he ticked off accomplishments under his watch, such as ending the war in Iraq.
But he also warned the audience about what's ahead during the campaign, and why their donations matter, saying, "You're going to see hundreds of millions of dollars in negative ads, because the other side's not offering anything new."
To build a war chest that would enable him to counter those ads and run his campaign, Mr. Obama is spending two days on the West Coast to raise an expected $5 million.
He will have done 153 fundraisers since formally declaring his candidacy for re-election a little over a year ago - nearly double the number President Bush had done at the same point in 2004.
With the majority of outside super PAC dollars going to Republicans, raising money will be crucially important for Democrats in this election cycle.
In the Wisconsin recall election, unions spearheaded the effort to unseat Gov. Scott Walker after he successfully limited their power. But the union effort to get out the vote was overcome by the GOP advantage in money and TV advertising. Walker raised $30 million. His challenger, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, raised only $4 million.
Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., chair of the Democrats' campaign committee, warned that the Wisconsin results should be "a wake-up call" that the party needs money for TV ads to compete with the super PACs.
A California political power broker once put it this way: "Money is the mothers' milk of politics."
Four years ago, candidate Obama outspent his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain by more than two-to-one - $730 million to $333 million.
To see Bill Plante's report, click on the video in the player above.
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