Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 3
16th Report - Whole of Government Accounts 2022-23
Published 19 Mar 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Whole of Government Accounts 2022-23 All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
We are concerned that MHCLG does not have sufficient oversight of local government to foresee issues and intervene where appropriate. Government’s ability to effectively monitor financial pressure within local authorities is inevitably undermined while authorities are not producing audited accounts, or while their accounts are subject to disclaimed or heavily qualified audit opinions. This lack of transparency and assurance over local authority matters is occurring at a time of worsening financial health for some local authorities. It is not clear how the statutory audit backstop will be enforced or what consequences there will be for local authorities who fail to have their accounts audited by the backstop date. 5 recommendation a. Alongside the Treasury Minute response to this report, MHCLG should write to the committee explaining its approach to identifying local authorities that are under financial pressure and submit their latest risk assessment analysis. b. MHCLG should also, within six months, set out the consequences for local authorities failing to meet the backstop deadline.
From: Public Accounts Committee, 16th Report - Whole of Government Accounts 2022-23 (HC 367), 19 March 2025
Government response
Latest Treasury Minutes progress report to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Sixteenth Report of Session 2024-26
The government responded to the whole report on 4 June 2026.
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Sixteenth report from Session 2024-25
Published 16 May 2025.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government states that it "agrees with the Committee's recommendation" on each of the six conclusions, but disagrees with two of the Committee's conclusions about the pace of local audit reform and MHCLG's oversight of local government.
- HM Treasury will write to the Committee within six months on missing and unaudited data, and "expects the level of missing data to reduce in 2024-25", though it "may take longer" before no audit opinions are disclaimed.
- The government "does not agree" that it has taken too long to put local audit plans in place, citing six statutory backstop dates announced in July 2024.
- The government "disagrees" that MHCLG lacks sufficient oversight of local government, stating that MHCLG uses modelling and other financial information to understand financial resilience.
- On accessibility, HM Treasury "will design a draft summary WGA pocketbook after WGA 2023-24 is published" and share an early draft with the Committee, while digitisation will only be considered once the WGA recovery plan is completed.