Recommendation 31

Given the potential for the WGA to be an important and really useful document about public spending, we asked the Treasury how it could help Parliamentarians and members of the public to understand the WGA and its implications. The ICAEW suggested that that it would be beneficial to hold events additional to our annual evidence session, to 49 WGA0002 Written evidence from ICAEW: The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, 10 November 2023 50 Committee of Public Accounts, Whole of Government Accounts 2019–20, Twentieth Report of Session 2022–23, HC 31, 14 December 2022. Para 18 51 WGA0003 Written evidence submitted by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, 10 November 2023 52 Q 50 53 Qq 1–2, 50–51, 53 54 WGA0002 Written evidence from ICAEW: The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, 10 November 2023 Whole of Government Accounts 2020–21 19 enable Parliament to hold government to account for its stewardship of public money. It suggested that annual financial presentations, using the numbers in the WGA, could be beneficial to Parliament – similar to how listed companies present their annual financial resutls to shareholders and other stakehodlers. We therefore also asked it whether it would consider giving seminars introducing and explaining the document to be made available to Parliamentarians and the wider public. The Treasury told us that it had worked hard to make the WGA more understandable and use much more plain English, and that it would continue to do so. It recognised that importance of people being able to understand where taxpayers’ money is spent and said that it was open to doing seminars and teachings wherever there is demand.55