Recommendation 17

When examining the 2019–20 WGA, we concluded that failures in the local audit market in England were resulting in poorer quality data for preparing the Whole of Government Accounts.26 We subsequently examined the timeliness of local auditor reporting in June 2023, and found that the backlog of audit opinions for local government bodies remained unacceptably high, and delays to their publication hindered accountability for public spending. We found that over 630 accounts, some of which date as far back to 2015–16, were yet to be signed off by auditors by the end of November 2022.27 We also noted the pattern of deterioration in the number of local government audits completed by statutory deadlines. This issue has once again led to a qualification of the 2020–21 WGA, with the C&AG having identified 120 bodies where unaudited draft data was consolidated into the 2020–21 WGA following delays in the audit of the underlying accounts, a fourfold increase on the previous year. The C&AG noted that HM Treasury did not obtain information, or undertake analysis, to understand the risk of misstatements within the unaudited draft accounts, and that his own analysis, completed substantially using publicly available data, identified assurance gaps over £51.6 billion worth of Property, Plant and Equipment.28