Recommendation 7

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