Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 29
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 WGA highlights the succession of economic shocks that the UK has been affected by in recent years, straining public finances.64 The accounts detail several specific risks to the UK’s public finances going forward. These include costs of resolving, mitigating and adapting for climate change damage, including flooding and coastal erosion. Additionally, health spending is expected to increase in future years, resulting in an increase to public sector debt. Demographic pressures and geopolitical pressures are also expected to pressure public finances in the next fifty years putting the UK’s public debt on an unsustainable trajectory, on the basis of policy at the Spring budget in March 2024 and in the absence of policy action to mitigate the rise in debt.65 60 Q 14 61 WGA0003; WGA 2022–23 p244 62 Q 68 63 Q 68 64 WGA 2022–23 p37 65 WGA 2022–23 p37 17
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.