Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 14
14
Accepted
Missing and untimely WGA data limits its utility for government decision-making
Conclusion
We asked the Treasury about the extent of missing data and the impact of this on the ability of government to make decisions about public spending. HM Treasury recognised that any gap in data meant that there was uncertainty about the completeness of the information that it was using. It also recognised that, combined with the timeliness of the accounts, this made the WGA a “less timely, less complete set of data for us to base decision making on”.21 It told us that it did not think that this fundamentally changed the way that it made decisions, or the quality of those decisions, as it did not make decisions about public spending in isolation. But it accepted that it needed to think carefully about what it should do next year if there was more missing data, which it expected to be the case, in order to allow people to draw trends as reliably as possible from the data in the WGA.22
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the committee's concerns regarding the impact of missing data on WGA decision-making and is proactively working to improve data collection and completeness through requiring draft data, engaging stakeholders, running webinars, and strengthening central government discipline, with a target implementation by Spring 2024.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
2.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: Spring 2024 2.2 HM Treasury is committed to proactively working with all entities to ensure data is collected in a timely manner, and the department is proactively mitigating the risks around missing data. For example, HM Treasury requires bodies to submit draft data even if audited data is not available. HM Treasury is also regularly engaging with stakeholders at a senior level on the matter of unaudited local government statutory accounts, as per recommendation 3 below. 2.3 HM Treasury has run four separate webinars for local and central government preparers, that were attended by over 700 people. The aim of the webinars was to run through the data submission process and provide support for preparers across the different sectors. The department will continue to run webinars in the future. 2.4 HM Treasury is strengthening discipline in central government, including making timely WGA returns an explicit measure in the Accounting Officer end-of-year finance assessments. This has put more rigour and accountability into the system. HM Treasury also contact underlying entities on a regular basis to monitor progress and assist with any issues, escalating to Director level where required, to ensure continuous engagement. 2.5 HMT will continue to try to ensure that we capture as much data as possible across the public sector in WGA, regardless of whether or not it has been audited.