Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 6
6
Accepted
Improve accessibility of Whole of Government Accounts information for Parliament, including localised spending data.
Conclusion
HM Treasury is not making the most of the information available within the WGA. As the balance sheet of the nation and an economic snapshot of the economy, the WGA has the potential to be an important and useful document in explaining where taxpayers’ money is spent and where are the government’s financial liabilities. Given this, there is more that HM Treasury could do to help Parliament read the accounts, and understand what the implications are of the information presented. This could, for example, take the form of an annual financial presentation, using the data and information included in the most recent audited WGA. There are also international examples of transparency over public spending that HM Treasury could learn from, such the regional spending analysis available within the US. Regional analysis of spending in the UK is now available through OSCAR II. Recommendation 6: HM Treasury should, within its Treasury Minute response, explain how it intends to improve the accessibility of the information within the Whole of Government Accounts, for example through seminars with MPs, and providing access to the localised spending data now available through OSCAR II. 8 Whole of Government Accounts 2020–21 1 Timeliness of the WGA
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the recommendation and has written to the Parliamentary Scrutiny Unit to explore providing training and seminars to MPs to improve WGA accessibility. It also highlighted that regional spending data is already available through OSCAR II publications like PESA and CRA.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. The department would welcome an opportunity to work with the NAO and Parliament by holding seminars and other training sessions. HM Treasury chairs the User and Preparer Advisory Group (UPAG) which brings together users and preparers of government accounts provide independent recommendations and advice to the Treasury in furtherance of improving financial reporting in the public sector. HM Treasury has written to the Parliamentary Scrutiny Unit to explore the possibility of providing training and seminars to MPs and will continue to investigate other ways in which the accessibility of the information within WGA can be improved. Beyond the WGA, OSCAR II is used to produce the Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses (PESA), which is the yearly publication on government spending. It brings together recent outturn data, estimates for the latest year, and spending plans for the rest of the current spending review period. It also shows spending by region. OSCAR II is also used to produce the Country and Regional Analysis (CRA) which presents statistical estimates for the allocation of identifiable expenditure between the UK countries and 9 English regions. The OSCAR II dataset is also used to provide quarterly updates to monthly outturn data. The outturn information is taken from OSCAR data submitted by departments. The public are able to see monthly patterns in spend by organisations reporting data on OSCAR II. At the same time, users are also able to drill down beneath previously released high-level aggregates.