Recommendation 19

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