The national spending watchdog has refused to approve the Government's accounts for the second year running due to the ‘severe backlogs’ in local authority audits.
The National Audit Office (NAO) reported that of the 407 English councils that should have submitted audited information into the Whole of Government Accounts 2023-24, 167 (41%) failed to submit data.
A further 224 (55%) submitted data based on unaudited accounts and only 16 (4%) submitted adequate audited data.?
Last year, the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG), Gareth Davies, issued the first ever disclaimed opinion on the Whole of Government Accounts 2022-23, due largely to inadequate assurance over local authority audits.
Mr Davies commented: ‘It’s essential that the Government’s reforms to the local government audit system in England are effective in restoring timely and robust assurance in that sector so that the accuracy of the UK’s Whole of Government Accounts can be properly assured.’
‘Even more importantly, local taxpayers in England deserve timely audited accounts from their local council,’ he added.
