Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 26
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 ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We challenged the Treasury over the difficulty that an ordinary reader would have understand the actual movement in large liabilities from year to year.58 Written evidence received from Professor David Heald also noted that the recent volatility of the discount rate used in the valuation of assets and liabilities had made changes in WGA Net Liabilities difficult to interpret.59 51 Q 3 52 Q 4 53 WGA 2022–23 pp68–69 54 Nuclear Decommissioning Authority Annual Report and Accounts 2022–23 p143; Ministry of Defence Annual Report and Accounts 2022–23 p163 55 Nuclear Decommissioning Authority Annual Report and Accounts 2023–24 p149; Ministry of Defence Annual Report and Accounts 2023–24 p156 56 WGA 2022–23 p241 57 Q 68; WGA 2022–23 pp241–242 58 Q 14 59 WGA0002 16 The Treasury acknowledged that discount rates dominate movements in these liabilities, and that reductions in the discounted valuation of the liabilities do not themselves mean that actual future payments, for example to pensioners or for nuclear decommissioning, are reduced. The Treasury commented that the discounted values were of some use. But it also acknowledged that it could do more in the performance report to show future undiscounted liabilities, and that it was right to want to complement existing information to make it more meaningful to the reader.60
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.