Recommendation 21

The C&AG highlighted to us the crucial importance to the audit opinion of being able to assess whether there was adequate provision in the accounts to cover the full costs of resettlement schemes.54 We challenged the Permanent Secretary about the decision not to make the C&AG aware of the data breach and its impact, and whether he had ever raised that issue with Ministers. The Permanent Secretary told us that, from an accounting officer perspective, the period in question had been “deeply uncomfortable”. He noted that the Department’s advice to Ministers had focused on the Defence Select Committee and the Intelligence Security Committee, but recalled some conversations around the role of the NAO and the C&AG. He stressed his personal responsibility, albeit in the context of ministerial decisions on the tightness of briefing of Parliament, for the handling of the relationship in question.55