Source · Select Committees · Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee
Recommendation 29
29
Rejected
Paragraph: 129
Ensure local auditors' value for money opinions include actual assessment of value achieved
Recommendation
The Department should work with the organisation that prepares the Audit Code (currently the National Audit Office, eventually the system leader) to ensure that local auditors’ opinions over value for money include an actual assessment of value for money achieved, not merely whether appropriate arrangements exist. Such assessments of value for money achieved should cover specific services, projects or programmes, not necessarily to the activity of the entire local authority. These services, projects or programmes would be determined by, for example, local councillors or the auditors. This would allow a greater focus on areas of risk and provide actual assurance over the performance of the authority in key areas.
Government Response Summary
The government rejects the recommendation, arguing that ensuring value for money is the responsibility of local leaders, that auditors lack the resources and expertise for such specific assessments, and that it would hinder efforts to clear the audit backlog. They highlight the role of the Office for Local Government (Oflog) in providing performance information.
Paragraph Reference:
129
Government Response
Rejected
HM Government
Rejected
We do not support this recommendation. It is for local democratically elected leaders to ensure value for money for their communities and to put in place sufficiently robust processes (such as overview and scrutiny committees) to achieve that. Moreover, to ensure consistent application of such work that the Committee describes, would require a significant increase in resources and expertise. Auditors are not currently equipped to be able to comment on the value for money achieved by specific services, projects or programmes. At a time when there is significant pressure on the local audit system it would not be helpful in achieving the priority of clearing the backlog of outstanding audits to introduce a significant extra requirement on auditors. Separately, the work of the new Office for Local Government (Oflog) will enable citizens, local government, central government, and civil society to be better informed about the performance of local authorities. The information that is published will help citizens and civil society to hold their local authority to account and also help local authorities to identify where and how they might need to improve.