Recommendation 10

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