Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 8
8
Acknowledged
Throughout the course of the 2019–20 accounts preparation process, the Treasury repeatedly underestimated how long...
Recommendation
Throughout the course of the 2019–20 accounts preparation process, the Treasury repeatedly underestimated how long it would take to produce the WGA; missing both 11 Public Accounts Committee, Report of session: Whole of Government Accounts 2018–19, 22 January 2021 12 HM Treasury, The Whole of Government Accounts (Specified Dates) Order 2010, 2010 No. 570, 31 March 2010 13 WGA 2019–20, para 9, p 211 14 WGA 2019–20, title page 3 15 HM Treasury, Whole of Government Accounts: year ended 31 March 2019, HC 500, July 2020 16 Public Accounts Committee, Oral evidence: Whole of Government Accounts, HC 31, 8 June 2022, Q 5 17 Q 12 18 WGA 2019–20, para 14, p 212 Whole of Government Accounts 2019–20 11 statutory deadlines and routinely missing self-set delivery milestones.19 In November 2020 the Treasury told the Committee that the accounts would be published in June 2021.20 However, by January 2021 the Treasury was no longer in a position to meet the 28 February statutory deadline for providing the draft accounts to the C&AG, and by July 2021 it communicated to us that it would also not be able to meet the 31 December deadline for laying the accounts. Altogether the Treasury wrote to us four times about successive delays to the delivery schedule with the most recent of these updates giving April 2022 as the target for publication.21 22 23 24 The 2019–20 WGA was eventually published on 6 June
Government Response Summary
The Treasury is revisiting the timetable for the 2020-21 account and future cycles in light of the causes of the delays both this year and for 2019-20, and will write to the Committee setting out a long term recovery strategy that is realistic.
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
1.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Recommendation implemented 1.2 HM Treasury wrote to the Committee in October 2022 indicating that the planned March 2023 publication date for the 2020-21 Whole of Government Accounts (WGA) was unlikely to be achieved. The Treasury is revisiting the timetable for the 2020-21 account and future cycles in light of the causes of the delays both this year and for 2019-20. The Treasury will write to the Committee setting out a long term recovery strategy that is realistic and recognises the uncertainties and risks that are beyond the Treasury’s direct control. 1.3 The delay to WGA 2020-21 is driven principally by the late submission of data by components, and delays in audit work on component returns. Some lateness in submission was anticipated, but not the extent that materialised. This has delayed the start of work in 18 producing the account. The recovery strategy seeks to address this issue by strengthening discipline within the system, including by making timely WGA returns an explicit measure in the annual Accounting Officer financial assessment. In addition, the Treasury is investing in specialist project management support and increasing the size of the WGA team in order to enable work on multiple years of WGA simultaneously. This will increase the team’s capacity to performance manage the collection of WGA data for the following year, while the current year’s account is still being produced. This early collection of data will reduce the risk that late returns have a direct knock-on impact to the timing of the final account. The Treasury has been working closely with the National Audit Office to time future data collection in a window where they have capacity to audit the returns.