Recommendation 31

The C&AG being unable to provide an opinion on the UKHSA 2021–22 Annual Report and Accounts59 (see above) resulted in further ‘true and fair’ and ‘regularity’ qualifications on the Departmental Group accounts.60 . We questioned the Department on when it realised that the difficulties inherited by UKHSA would impact on the Group accounts. The Department said that ‘the precise issues’ and the amount of evidence not available to support the audit only became apparent to it in late 2022 and in January 2023, and that it was the NAO’s audit which had revealed these scale of these issues.61 54 Q 6 55 DHSC 2021–22 ARA, page 252 56 Qq 79, 90 57 DHSC 2021–22 ARA, page 253 58 DHSC 2020–21 ARA, p. 192 59 UKHSA ARA 2021–22 pages 86–87 60 DHSC 2021–22 ARA, pages 252–256 61 Q 36 16 Department of Health and Social Care 2021–22 Annual Report and Accounts