Recommendation 16

We asked the Treasury about the relationship it had with the public bodies which are required to submit data to the WGA, noting that the Treasury appeared to have operated largely as a passive receiver of data rather than actively seeking it out. The Treasury told us that while it may not be proactively contacting local authorities, it was regularly contacted by them with reasons why they cannot submit the required data, so it felt that it knew the underlying issues. It also told us that one area of engagement that it had focused on for 2021–22 was engagement with Scotland, where it was working to increase the number of entities that submitted data.25 Local audit crisis