Recommendation 29

When we examined the Accounting Officer Assessment process in November 2022, we were disappointed that Departments were not making as much of these assessments as they should. We found that accounting officer assessments were not being used widely enough across government, Despite the fact that HM Treasury was encouraging departments to publish summaries “as soon as possible”, subject to considerations such as commercial sensitivities. We concluded that HM Treasury had not done enough to support accounting officers to comply with its requirement to complete and publish AO assessments.57 In July 2022, the NAO found that accounting officers were not consistently publishing their assessments in line with HM Treasury guidance.58 As part of our November 2022 inquiry, HM Treasury told us that while it was “very clear for some programmes that an AO assessment was needed, for other more judgement is required”. It recognised that more needed to be done to create a culture where accounting officers consistently saw the benefits and value in completing an AO assessment.59 HM Treasury has since undertaken to work with the Infrastructure and Projects Authority to track which projects are due an accounting officer assessment.60