Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 10
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)
The Local Government Association (LGA) provided us with written evidence and commented that the high number of missing audit submissions to WGA from English local government is due to widespread systemic issues with local audit and not due to failings of governance in local authorities. It stated that the disclaimed or modified opinions are due to circumstances largely outside of the control of local bodies and do not 14 WGA 2022–23 p284 15 WGA 2022–23 p285 16 Q 1 17 WGA 2022–23 p18 18 WGA 2022–23 p285 19 Q 13 20 Q 13 10 signify issues in their financial accounts. It added that the causes of the crisis (in local audit) are complex, with no easy explanation or easy solution, but that factors include: • Insufficient audit resources. There are a limited number of audit firms within the market and a shortage of suitably qualified auditors working for them. • Auditors have to do additional work due to tighter and stricter regulation of auditors following audit failures in the private sector. • Local authority accounts are complicated and hard to understand. These complexities add to the amount of audit work and the work for accounts preparers.21
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.