Accountability for Taxpayers' Money inquiry
Closed
What the inquiry looked at
“The role of the Accounting Officer in safeguarding probity, regularity and value for taxpayers' money is a crucial part of accountability to Parliament. The National Audit Office (NAO) are undertaking a report which looks at the challenges facing those at the top of departments in fulfilling their Accounting Officer role in a world where complexity in the delivery of government business and public services is increasingly making accountability systems opaque, and where they face conflicting demands from their other role of supporting Ministers to deliver urgent policy objectives. With increasing complexity in government, comes a complex picture of responsibilities, involving locally devolved services, contracted-out functions and complex financing arrangements, among other developments. Even where accountability is devolved, Accounting Officers are responsible for ensuring that there are robust overall accountability arrangements throughout the delivery system. Without absolute clarity about accountability, however, both service improvement and fiscal savings are at risk of "falling through the gaps", with Parliament unable to hold anyone responsible. In some areas such as devolved services, accountability arrangements are an afterthought, or are still developing. The Public Accounts Committee repeatedly sees examples where it is not clear who is accountable for what and in the last Parliament our Committee pushed for greater clarity. National Audit Office report The NAO report looks at the frameworks through which Accounting Officers gain assurance over the value for money delivered under their areas of accountability. It considers the evidence, including from the use of Ministerial Directions, as to how effectively Accounting Officers as discharging their responsibility to safeguard value for money (e.g. in the recent Kids' Company example). It also looks at the role of the Treasury in overseeing the accountability system and suggest ways to bolster accountability to Parliament. The Public Accounts Committee last examined overall government accountability arrangements in 2012, when they were concerned about the clarity of Accounting Officers’ roles and the robustness of accountability frameworks in the light of increasing localism. Since then, other developments in government and public service delivery have added to the complexity of those frameworks. This landscape review looks at the current challenges to securing accountability for taxpayers’ money.”
The committee's words, from the inquiry page on parliament.uk ↗.
What it found
Departmental Accounting Officers (AOs) are a crucial element in Parliament’s ability to hold the Executive to account. They are personally responsible and accountable to Parliament for their department’s use of public money and the stewardship of its assets.
They have to balance these responsibilities to Parliament with their other responsibilities as Permanent Secretaries to serve their Ministers. However, increasingly complex delivery methods and the continuing lack of good cost and performance data are undermining accountability. There are also too many examples of AOs allowing projects and initiatives, such as funding to Kids Company and the e-Borders programme, to proceed unchallenged, despite strong evidence of poor value for money. Where an AO has serious concerns about value for money, he or she can flag the concern by formally (and publicly) requesting from the Minister a ‘ministerial direction’ to proceed. But directions are not being used effectively as an accountability control: they are few and far between, despite AOs having concerns about the value for money or feasibility of policies. There is consequently a damaging lack of transparency as AOs’ concerns about the use of public money are not brought to Parliament’s attention. We intend to return regularly to issues of accountability in our work, to ensure government can properly be held to account for the spending of taxpayers’ money.
What the government said
No government response is linked to this report.
How the inquiry ran
Each dot is a dated item listed on this page, from the inquiry's opening on 5 January 2016 to its close on 12 May 2016.
- Oral evidence 29 Feb 2016
- Report 4 May 2016
What it recommended
The committee's recommendations are not listed here yet. Read them in 39th Report - Accountability to Parliament for taxpayers' money ↗ on parliament.uk.
Evidence
Oral evidence sessions 1
- 29 Feb 2016No witnesses recordedparliament.uk ↗