Recommendations & Conclusions
19 items
2
Recommendation
Thirty-Seventh Report - Whole of Govern…
Accepted
There is an apparent lack of ownership by the Treasury of the analysis and scenario planning activities necessary to manage the impact of COVID-19 on government finances. The scale of the likely increase in government borrowing to fund government’s response to COVID-19 is a significant new challenge to the Treasury’s …
Read more
There is an apparent lack of ownership by the Treasury of the analysis and scenario planning activities necessary to manage the impact of COVID-19 on government finances. The scale of the likely increase in government borrowing to fund government’s response to COVID-19 is a significant new challenge to the Treasury’s objective to place the public finances on a sustainable footing. While the Office for Budget Responsibility is responsible for producing economic forecasts and analysis of the public finances, it is a matter for government to determine how that information is used to make policy decisions. The Treasury has not explained how the current and future impact of COVID-19 would affect planned or committed investments, projects and programmes, and how these would be prioritised should decisions be needed on which to delay or cancel. When it comes to future spending decisions, it is important for the Treasury to have a detailed plan in order to make strategic decisions about where planned funding can be cut or re-deployed to meet changing priorities. However, the Treasury has not conducted scenario analysis on how the economic impact of COVID-19 might affect decisions to set aside projects and investments, and plans to only undertake such scenario planning as part of the next spending review. The Treasury has also not undertaken analysis of how increases in the UK’s ratio of debt to GDP as a result of COVID-19 may impact the country’s credit rating or analysed how long the country can continue to borrow at the current rate. 6 Whole of Government Accounts 2018–19 Recommendation: The Treasury should write to the committee setting out what specific analysis it is currently undertaking as it manages the economic impacts of COVID-19.
Show less
Government response AI summary
The government agrees with the recommendation and states it has already implemented it. They detail the extensive economic analysis undertaken by HM Treasury since the pandemic's onset, including advice to ministers, synthesis of various economic data and forecasts, and assessments presented in the March 2021 …
Read full response →
HM Treasury
3
Recommendation
Thirty-Seventh Report - Whole of Govern…
Accepted
The WGA does not provide assurance that significant risks to the UK’s financial sustainability are well managed. A key consideration for any organisation is its financial sustainability. There are several government liabilities disclosed in the WGA that, due to their size and nature, represent significant risks to the UK finances. …
Read more
The WGA does not provide assurance that significant risks to the UK’s financial sustainability are well managed. A key consideration for any organisation is its financial sustainability. There are several government liabilities disclosed in the WGA that, due to their size and nature, represent significant risks to the UK finances. For example, the liabilities related to nuclear decommissioning are complex and costly, being valued at some £152.2 billion at 31 March 2019. The provisions arising from clinical negligence are now valued at £85.3 billion, with a similar level of new cases being reported every year. In future years, the government will be further exposed to liabilities arising from its response to COVID-19 that will require strategic management. Yet the WGA does not explain how the Treasury works with other departments and bodies who manage the activities underlying the liabilities to ensure that the risks to financial sustainability are well managed and that taxpayers are getting value for money. Recommendation: The Treasury should provide meaningful insight through the WGA into how it works with other government bodies to ensure risks to financial sustainability are appropriately managed.
Show less
Government response AI summary
The government agrees with the recommendation and commits to providing more meaningful insight into the management of financial sustainability risks. Future WGAs, starting with the 2019-20 report, will include additional information on how key liabilities are managed, their evolution, and how value for money is …
Read full response →
HM Treasury
4
Recommendation
Thirty-Seventh Report - Whole of Govern…
Accepted
The financial sustainability of some local authorities presents a significant risk to government. While local authorities have autonomy over their spending, the Treasury is the ‘funder of last resort’ should a local authority become insolvent. As COVID-19 has increased the fiscal pressures many government bodies face, we expect that more …
Read more
The financial sustainability of some local authorities presents a significant risk to government. While local authorities have autonomy over their spending, the Treasury is the ‘funder of last resort’ should a local authority become insolvent. As COVID-19 has increased the fiscal pressures many government bodies face, we expect that more local authorities will soon be unable to balance their books and will be forced to issue section 114 notices in order to suspend non-essential expenditure. We would expect the Treasury to have oversight of the sector in order to properly manage the wider risk to the public finances and expect it to report on how it is managing this risk in the WGA. The Redmond review has highlighted a lack of oversight of local government and serious issues in the local government sector, including failures in current local audit arrangements. Recommendation: The Treasury should work with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure government’s response to the Redmond review is agreed and implemented as soon as possible. It should set out how it knows its oversight of local government fiscal risks is effective in the WGA given government’s exposure as the funder of last resort.
Show less
Government response AI summary
The government agrees with the recommendation, committing to include additional and more detailed information on local government fiscal risks and financial breakdowns in current and future WGA performance reports by Autumn 2021. HM Treasury will also support MHCLG in implementing the Redmond Review response.
Read full response →
HM Treasury
5
Recommendation
Thirty-Seventh Report - Whole of Govern…
Accepted
The Treasury has aspirations to standardise financial reporting across government but has not set out how this will make the WGA more useful or accessible. The Treasury faces difficulties when trying to categorise transactions and balances reported by over 9,000 organisations into robust categories that are useful to the user. …
Read more
The Treasury has aspirations to standardise financial reporting across government but has not set out how this will make the WGA more useful or accessible. The Treasury faces difficulties when trying to categorise transactions and balances reported by over 9,000 organisations into robust categories that are useful to the user. The Government Finance Function within the Treasury is undertaking work to align finance processes across government such as expense claims. It is also planning to standardise how Departments categorise their balances and transactions, which should reduce the significant manual work required to produce the WGA. We welcome all efforts to enhance the quality of information provided in the WGA and support the Treasury’s work to achieve this aim. We previously recommended Whole of Government Accounts 2018–19 7 that financial reporting within the WGA could be improved by providing more detailed disclosures, in addition to that required by financial reporting standards. We expect the work of the Government Finance Function could result in the WGA including more useful information for users, such as much more detailed analysis of how taxpayers’ money is spent on the purchase of goods and services, the costs across government of EU Exit and the cost of COVID-19. The Treasury’s plans to publish underlying data alongside the WGA is an innovative solution that could further improve transparency and accessibility. Recommendation: The Treasury should report against the progress of the work carried out by the Government Finance Function in the WGA given how key it is to improving both the production of the WGA and the insights it can provide. It should ensure its programme includes and accelerates plans to implement tools and processes to improve the information it gathers on cross-government issues such as EU Exit and COVID-19.
Show less
Government response AI summary
The government agrees with the recommendation, stating that the Government Finance Function is developing a performance framework and will begin reporting on its progress in April 2021. It further commits to including estimated expenditures on EU Exit and COVID-19 in the WGA 2019-20 performance report …
Read full response →
HM Treasury
7
Recommendation
Thirty-Seventh Report - Whole of Govern…
Accepted
The WGA 2018–19 disclosures relating to COVID-19 relied heavily on a summary of a report produced by the National Audit Office.10 The Treasury did not attempt to explain to Parliament or the user of the accounts how it was managing the fiscal risk COVID-19 poses for the economy, nor how …
Read more
The WGA 2018–19 disclosures relating to COVID-19 relied heavily on a summary of a report produced by the National Audit Office.10 The Treasury did not attempt to explain to Parliament or the user of the accounts how it was managing the fiscal risk COVID-19 poses for the economy, nor how it may impact the government’s fiscal position going forwards. In our evidence session the Treasury reiterated its position that it views the WGA as a backward-looking, retrospective document and said that while it wants to set out the risks across government and how these risks were mitigated and controlled, it was not convinced that the WGA was the best place to set out how it was managing forward-looking risk.11 This is despite the fact this is standard practice across public and private sector accounts, and that stakeholders, including this Committee, have given Treasury clear feedback to make the performance report forward looking and requested that it cover issues such as government debt, the burden of paying for COVID-19 and the maturity of liabilities.12 Management of significant risks to financial sustainability
Show less
Government response AI summary
The government agreed to include additional forward-looking information and commentary on financial position and fiscal risks, including principal risks, future cash flows, and COVID-19 expenditure, in the WGA 2019-20 performance report by Autumn 2021.
Read full response →
HM Treasury
8
Conclusion
Thirty-Seventh Report - Whole of Govern…
Accepted
The WGA discloses a number of significant liabilities that due to their size and nature pose unique risks to the UK’s financial sustainability and government’s ability to achieve value for money. At 31 March 2019, the UK’s liability in relation to nuclear decommissioning was some £152 billion.13 Whilst this was …
Read more
The WGA discloses a number of significant liabilities that due to their size and nature pose unique risks to the UK’s financial sustainability and government’s ability to achieve value for money. At 31 March 2019, the UK’s liability in relation to nuclear decommissioning was some £152 billion.13 Whilst this was a fall from £263 billion in the previous year, nearly all of that decrease was due to the change in the discount rate used to calculate future liabilities, and not related to a change in the underlying nature of the UK’s liability.14 Similarly, new clinical negligence cases remained broadly flat year on year, contributing to a provision for clinical negligence of £85 billion.15
Show less
Government response AI summary
The government agreed to provide more information in the WGA 2019-20 and future WGAs on how key liabilities are managed, their evolution, and how value for money is achieved, drawing on OBR projections and reflecting actions from the Balance Sheet Review.
Read full response →
HM Treasury
10
Conclusion
Thirty-Seventh Report - Whole of Govern…
Accepted
Regarding the provision for clinical negligence, the WGA shows a levelling off of new cases and explains that in the second year of its new strategy to tackle clinical negligence laid out in April 2017, NHS Resolution mediated 380 cases, or 110% more than the previous year.20 We asked the …
Read more
Regarding the provision for clinical negligence, the WGA shows a levelling off of new cases and explains that in the second year of its new strategy to tackle clinical negligence laid out in April 2017, NHS Resolution mediated 380 cases, or 110% more than the previous year.20 We asked the Treasury what progress was being made to control the liability. The Treasury responded that clinical negligence had been picked up by the balance sheet review and that the lead for this area was the Department for Health and Social Care, working with a cross-government taskforce that involved the Treasury.21 Analysis and scenario planning
Show less
Government response AI summary
The government highlights that the Balance Sheet Review, which concluded in November 2020, aimed to strengthen control of long-term risks, and states that further actions for risk management are now in place. Future WGAs, starting with WGA 2019-20, will provide more information on how key …
Read full response →
HM Treasury
11
Conclusion
Thirty-Seventh Report - Whole of Govern…
Accepted
The scale of the likely increase in government borrowing to fund government’s response to COVID-19 is a significant new challenge to the Treasury’s objective to place the public finances on a sustainable footing.22 In its report on Evaluating the government balance sheet: borrowing published in November 2017, the NAO noted …
Read more
The scale of the likely increase in government borrowing to fund government’s response to COVID-19 is a significant new challenge to the Treasury’s objective to place the public finances on a sustainable footing.22 In its report on Evaluating the government balance sheet: borrowing published in November 2017, the NAO noted that the Treasury had begun to strengthen its approach to analysing the government’s balance sheet and evaluating fiscal risk, but the work at that time was at an early stage and not sufficiently embedded to provide the Treasury with a common view of risk to inform its decision- making.23
Show less
Government response AI summary
The government agreed with the committee's concerns and committed to providing additional forward-looking information and commentary on the Treasury's approach to managing fiscal risk, including details on future cash flows and COVID-19 expenditure, in the WGA 2019-20 performance report.
Read full response →
HM Treasury
12
Conclusion
Thirty-Seventh Report - Whole of Govern…
Accepted
We were therefore interested in what analysis the Treasury had now been conducting in order to give assurance that it had a handle on the fiscal risks the pandemic poses to the UK economy and fiscal sustainability. We asked what projections the Treasury had for tax receipts in the short …
Read more
We were therefore interested in what analysis the Treasury had now been conducting in order to give assurance that it had a handle on the fiscal risks the pandemic poses to the UK economy and fiscal sustainability. We asked what projections the Treasury had for tax receipts in the short and medium term and whether it had been working with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to produce those projections. The Treasury responded that projection is the job of the OBR.24
Show less
Government response AI summary
The government agrees with the Committee, reiterating the OBR's role as the official economic forecaster. However, it commits that the WGA 2019-20 performance report will provide additional forward-looking information on the Treasury’s approach to managing financial position and fiscal risks, including principal risks, future cash …
Read full response →
HM Treasury
13
Conclusion
Thirty-Seventh Report - Whole of Govern…
Accepted
With the UK’s debt as a proportion of GDP above 100%, any increases in interest rates would have a significant impact on the economy and government spending. When asked whether it was modelling for interest rate increases, the Treasury confirmed that it did, but deferred to the OBR as the …
Read more
With the UK’s debt as a proportion of GDP above 100%, any increases in interest rates would have a significant impact on the economy and government spending. When asked whether it was modelling for interest rate increases, the Treasury confirmed that it did, but deferred to the OBR as the prime place for this information, noting that the 16 Public Accounts Committee, Twenty-Eighth Report of Session 2019–21, The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s management of the Magnox contract, HC 653 November 2020 17 Q 77 18 Q 79 19 Q 81 20 WGA 2018–19, p 41 21 Qq 75–76 22 WGA 2018–19, para 1.12, p 3 23 National Audit Office, Evaluating the government balance sheet: borrowing, HC 526, November 2017 24 Q 16 Whole of Government Accounts 2018–19 11 OBR’s fiscal risk report specifically identifies rising interest as one of the big risks for the public finances. When pushed to expand on the impact of rising interest rates on the public finances, the Treasury outlined in general terms how interest rate rises would result in bigger debt interest costs and less for other public spending.25 When asked whether it had conducted any analysis or forecasting on further significant increases in debt to GDP ratios, the Treasury deferred to the OBR.26 The Treasury also confirmed that it had not conducted any analysis on how the increased debt to GDP ratio may impact the UK’s credit rating.27
Show less
Government response AI summary
The government agreed with the committee's observation, committing to enhanced transparency on fiscal risks. The WGA 2019-20 performance report will include additional forward-looking information and commentary on the Treasury's approach to managing fiscal risk, including implications for future years and details on COVID-19 expenditure.
Read full response →
HM Treasury
14
Recommendation
Thirty-Seventh Report - Whole of Govern…
Accepted
Although at some points during our evidence session the Treasury stated that it was conducting forecasting and scenario planning, it was not clear what this entailed, how this differed from work by third parties such as the OBR, and whether this was business as usual or additional work specifically to …
Read more
Although at some points during our evidence session the Treasury stated that it was conducting forecasting and scenario planning, it was not clear what this entailed, how this differed from work by third parties such as the OBR, and whether this was business as usual or additional work specifically to address risks arising from COVID-19.28
Show less
Government response AI summary
The government agreed with the recommendation and confirmed it has implemented it by setting out the specific economic analysis it undertakes, including leveraging various data sources, considering NPI impacts, publishing analyses, and incorporating this information into policy advice for ministers.
Read full response →
HM Treasury
15
Conclusion
Thirty-Seventh Report - Whole of Govern…
Accepted
If debt payments increase, or tax receipts decrease, there will be a decrease in budget available for other public spending.29 We asked the Treasury whether it had identified what current projects may need to be cancelled, or what potential investments foregone, due to the ongoing impact of COVID-19 on the …
Read more
If debt payments increase, or tax receipts decrease, there will be a decrease in budget available for other public spending.29 We asked the Treasury whether it had identified what current projects may need to be cancelled, or what potential investments foregone, due to the ongoing impact of COVID-19 on the economy. The Treasury said that due to the huge uncertainty surrounding the pandemic, government had decided to not have an autumn budget and had replaced the planned three-year spending review with a one-year review, and it would be at this full spending review next year where it would consider priorities for the rest of the Parliament.30 Financial sustainability of local authorities
Show less
Government response AI summary
The government agreed with the committee's observation, committing to enhanced transparency on fiscal risks. The WGA 2019-20 performance report will include additional forward-looking information and commentary on the Treasury's approach to managing fiscal risk, including implications for future years and details on COVID-19 expenditure.
Read full response →
HM Treasury
16
Conclusion
Thirty-Seventh Report - Whole of Govern…
Accepted
As the UK Government has a devolved structure, local authorities have significant autonomy over their spending and have powers to invest in commercial property. We have, over a number of years, raised concerns over the behaviour of local authorities with regards to commercial property investments, noting as far back as …
Read more
As the UK Government has a devolved structure, local authorities have significant autonomy over their spending and have powers to invest in commercial property. We have, over a number of years, raised concerns over the behaviour of local authorities with regards to commercial property investments, noting as far back as 2016 that the government appeared complacent to the risk that these investments posed to local authority finances.31 In our recent July report into Local authority investment in commercial property, we concluded that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) had failed to ensure local authorities adhered to guidance, which led to many taking on excessive and risky debt. We also found that MHCLG did not have the data it needed to carry out its oversight responsibilities.32
Show less
Government response AI summary
The government agreed with the committee's observation, stating it is working with MHCLG to support the local audit market and manage fiscal risks. MHCLG has already published a response detailing specific actions, including enabling fee agreements, extending audit deadlines, and providing an additional £15 million …
Read full response →
HM Treasury
17
Conclusion
Thirty-Seventh Report - Whole of Govern…
Accepted
In September 2020, Sir Tony Redmond published his report Independent Review into the Oversight of Local Audit and the Transparency of Local Authority Financial Reporting (Redmond Review), noting that the local audit market is very fragile.33 He concluded that current local audit arrangements fail to deliver, in full, policy objectives …
Read more
In September 2020, Sir Tony Redmond published his report Independent Review into the Oversight of Local Audit and the Transparency of Local Authority Financial Reporting (Redmond Review), noting that the local audit market is very fragile.33 He concluded that current local audit arrangements fail to deliver, in full, policy objectives underpinning the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014, and reported an overriding concern that 25 Qq 22–24, 48 26 Qq 45–49 27 Qq 52–53 28 Qq 35, 50 29 Q 24; WGA 2018–19, p 16 30 Qq 17, 36–38 31 Public Accounts Committee, Twenty-sixth Report of Session 2016–17, Financial sustainability of local authorities, HC708, November 2016 32 Public Accounts Committee, Eleventh Report of Session 2019–21, Local authority investment in commercial property, HC 312, July 2020, paras 2, 7 33 Sir Tony Redmond, Independent Review into the Oversight, September 2020, page 1 12 Whole of Government Accounts 2018–19 there is a lack of coherence and public accountability within the existing system.34 Local Government statutory accounts are the only information provided by local authorities that are independently verified through external audit and so function as a key assurance mechanism for government.35 The Treasury stated it was working with MHCLG on the Redmond Review and were looking to published a co-ordinated response to the review by the end of 2020.36
Show less
Government response AI summary
The government agreed with the Committee’s point and has already taken concrete actions, including MHCLG publishing a response to the Redmond Review, allocating an additional £15 million to local authorities, and taking steps to support the audit market, such as enabling fee agreements and extending …
Read full response →
HM Treasury
19
Conclusion
Thirty-Seventh Report - Whole of Govern…
Accepted
We have previously recommended that financial reporting within the WGA should be improved by providing more detailed disclosures to ensure that users of the account have the comprehensive information needed to understand the public finances.39 WGA is increasingly important to ensuring accountability for public spending on key areas of public …
Read more
We have previously recommended that financial reporting within the WGA should be improved by providing more detailed disclosures to ensure that users of the account have the comprehensive information needed to understand the public finances.39 WGA is increasingly important to ensuring accountability for public spending on key areas of public interest, for example, it has the potential to help the public and Parliament understand the current and likely future impact of EU Exit on the public finances overall.40 While the WGA 2018–19 did include an estimate of the future liability related to the financial settlement with the EU, it did not include granular information on cross- government spend on EU Exit. Instead the performance report section Spending on EU preparations was based on the high-level figures from a NAO report.41
Show less
Government response AI summary
The government commits to including estimated expenditures on EU Exit and COVID-19 in the WGA 2019-20 performance report by Autumn 2021, addressing the Committee's observation about the need for more granular financial reporting. They also highlight ongoing work by the Government Finance Function to improve …
Read full response →
HM Treasury
20
Recommendation
Thirty-Seventh Report - Whole of Govern…
Accepted
For the WGA to record the impact of COVID-19, government bodies will need to record costs in a manner that allows the increase in spending due to COVID-19 to be identifiable from any other changes in spending.42 The Treasury outlined that it was asking Departments to track and record how …
Read more
For the WGA to record the impact of COVID-19, government bodies will need to record costs in a manner that allows the increase in spending due to COVID-19 to be identifiable from any other changes in spending.42 The Treasury outlined that it was asking Departments to track and record how they are using the ring-fenced money for COVID and EU spending, however this involved significant judgement and manual intervention. The Treasury also confirmed that it was in the early stages of considering how to identify and report non ring-fenced spend on COVID-19 and EU Exit , but were not actively looking at introducing time recording processes to enable staff costs to be recorded against COVID-19 or EU exit.43 This would be essential to capture both the true cost to the government of undertaking this work, and whether government has the capacity to deliver.
Show less
Government response AI summary
The government agreed with the recommendation, stating it is developing a performance framework to improve data comparability and embedding minimum standards for departmental reporting. HM Treasury has set additional reporting requirements for EU Exit and COVID-19 in departmental Annual Reports and Accounts, and the WGA …
Read full response →
HM Treasury
21
Conclusion
Thirty-Seventh Report - Whole of Govern…
Accepted
Previously the Treasury has expressed dissatisfaction at the level of expenditure across all types of government spending that is classified as miscellaneous or other by WGA bodies, as it prevents the WGA providing more granular information. The Treasury stated that the implementation of the new OSCAR II IT system should …
Read more
Previously the Treasury has expressed dissatisfaction at the level of expenditure across all types of government spending that is classified as miscellaneous or other by WGA bodies, as it prevents the WGA providing more granular information. The Treasury stated that the implementation of the new OSCAR II IT system should help improve the quality of the information disclosed.44 To further improve the quality of information about what costs Departments have incurred, the Treasury’s Government Finance Function is planning to bring in a standard chart of accounts which it believes will remove manual work in Departments and provide more granular data.45 However, the introduction of a standard chart of accounts is a time-intensive and costly task, which would need to be timed with when Departments were already changing systems and the Treasury also need to consider interactions with shared service centres. This aspiration aligns with other work already undertaken in the Government Finance Function around converging other processes, such as expense claims.46 39 Letter to Sir Tom Scholar, September 2019 40 Public Accounts Committee, Seventy-Fourth Report of Session 2017–19, para 3 41 WGA 2018–19, p 12; National Audit Office, The cost of EU Exit preparations, HC 102, March 2020 42 Q 84 43 Qq 89, 92 44 Public Accounts Committee, Seventy-Fourth Report of Session 2017–19, para 9 45 Q 93 46 Qq 94, 95 14 Whole of Government Accounts 2018–19 Risks to quality
Show less
Government response AI summary
The government agrees with the importance of improving financial reporting and confirms that the Government Finance Function is developing a performance framework and converging finance processes and data standards. It notes that OSCAR 2 implementation and these convergences will enhance data comparability, aligning with the …
Read full response →
HM Treasury
23
Conclusion
Thirty-Seventh Report - Whole of Govern…
Accepted
The NAO highlighted in the C&AG Report for the WGA for the year ended 31 March 2019that the failure to complete local government audits in a timely fashion led to both an increasing number of bodies whose financial information is not included in the WGA and an increase in the …
Read more
The NAO highlighted in the C&AG Report for the WGA for the year ended 31 March 2019that the failure to complete local government audits in a timely fashion led to both an increasing number of bodies whose financial information is not included in the WGA and an increase in the number of bodies whose financial information included in the WGA has not been audited. This resulted in a lower quality picture of the financial performance and position of the UK public sector and impacts on the ability to conduct trend analysis of the government’s financial performance and position over time .48 The NAO also warned that challenges to sustainability in the local government audit market, an issue also highlighted in the Redmond Review, may continue to affect the quality and timeliness of the WGA in the future.49
Show less
Government response AI summary
The government committed to including more information on local government fiscal risks in the WGA 2019-20 performance report and working with MHCLG to support the Redmond Review's implementation to ensure stability in local audit.
Read full response →
HM Treasury
24
Conclusion
Thirty-Seventh Report - Whole of Govern…
Accepted
We expect the COVID-19 pandemic to exacerbate these challenges to the timely production of the WGA in future. The Treasury accepted that it can only start to produce the account once it receives a critical mass of audited returns from bodies and that COVID-19 and issues in the local audit …
Read more
We expect the COVID-19 pandemic to exacerbate these challenges to the timely production of the WGA in future. The Treasury accepted that it can only start to produce the account once it receives a critical mass of audited returns from bodies and that COVID-19 and issues in the local audit market will present significant challenges in producing the WGA 2019–20. Returns for WGA are audited and based on bodies’ statutory accounts. At the date of our evidence session in November last year, there were still four major government departments which had not yet published their statutory accounts for 2019–20.50 The Treasury expected that OSCAR II will be able to produce the consolidation much more quickly once data returns have been received, however the OSCAR II consolidation module was not yet operational.51 47 WGA 2018–19, pp 37–47, 60–62 48 WGA 2018–19, p 186 49 WGA 2018–19, p 186; Redmond Review, p 1 50 Qq 99, 108 51 Qq 88, 99 Whole of Government Accounts 2018–19 15
Show less
Government response AI summary
The government committed to including more information on local government fiscal risks in the WGA 2019-20 performance report and working with MHCLG to support the Redmond Review's implementation to ensure stability in local audit.
Read full response →
HM Treasury