I last posted to this blog in late April as the country was in the teeth of the COVID-19 pandemic, explaining how we were maintaining our operations and adjusting our work programme in the light of the government response to the virus.
Now, in late July, most of the UK is gradually emerging from lockdown following a devastating period for many families, an enormous effort by health and care workers and many others in crucial roles and an unprecedented set of government spending interventions to mitigate some of the economic effects of the crisis.
Like every organisation, the NAO has had to adapt to the new working environment, but throughout this period we have continued to deliver our core programmes of work: the audit of the 2019/20 accounts of more than 400 government departments and public bodies and a substantial programme of value for money reviews and investigations into important spending programmes.
A substantial proportion of our effort has been redirected to the audit of government’s response to COVID-19. We have published reports on the scale and nature of the public spending commitments and on readying the NHS and social care for the pandemic. We have a further seven studies already underway to begin publishing in the Autumn, and more in the planning phases. We’ve developed our COVID-19 hub for people to follow our work on this.
Looking back, at the point that Parliament rose for its summer recess, we had completed the audits of 171 departments and public bodies, including some of our larger audits such as the Department for Work and Pensions and the Home Office. Our work on the remainder continues over the summer and those audited accounts will be laid in Parliament from its resumption in September. I’m grateful to both my audit teams and the finance teams of our audited bodies for their determined approach to obtaining the audit evidence we need when working remotely, and for addressing the financial reporting challenges posed by the pandemic including volatile valuations and going concern risks.
We have continued to complete and publish value for money reports on vital areas of public interest, including universal credit, the MoD’s aircraft carrier programme, asylum accommodation and support and digital transformation in the NHS. Our factual investigations have included reports on progress in removing dangerous cladding from residential blocks, the selection of towns to bid for money from the £3.6bn Towns Fund and government’s response to the collapse of Thomas Cook. This work has supported sessions of the Public Accounts Committee which has been meeting virtually throughout.
Our Overview of the UK government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic brought together in one place all of the main activities, costs and funding undertaken by government in the initial months and laid the foundation for us to build our programme of more in depth studies. We also looked further into the action the Department of Health & Social Care and other bodies undertook during March and April to ready the NHS and adult social care for a rapid increase in the number of infected people.
Looking forward, we have a broad and varied programme of work on COVID-19 to come once Parliament reconvenes in the Autumn. We have several reports planned on the important issue of government procurement. They include an audit of government buying in the pandemic, as well as specific studies into the efforts to increase the number of ventilators available to the NHS and on supplying the NHS and adult social care sector with PPE.
We will also examine measures aimed at protecting businesses and individuals from the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. This includes reports into the Bounce Back Loan Scheme and the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. Other studies will look into the government’s work to protect and support the vulnerable during lockdown and the Free School Meals voucher scheme. Our website has full details of our work in progress related to COVID-19, and we will continue to add further reviews to this list as they are approved.
In all of this work, we will examine how government adapted its approach to reflect the need for urgency in the first phase of the pandemic, and how it is managing the attendant risks to value for money and probity in public spending. Our reports will be published, laid in Parliament and be available to the Public Accounts Committee for its programme of inquiries in the normal way.
We will continue to respond to the risks to public money posed by this unprecedented time for the country to provide the assurance required by Parliament and the public and to draw out the lessons for future phases of this pandemic and future emergencies.
Gareth Davies
Comptroller & Auditor General
Read more about our work to report on the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Author
Gareth Davies
Gareth Davies was appointed C&AG in June 2019. Before his appointment as C&AG, he was Head of Public Services at Mazars, a global accountancy firm specialising in audit, tax and advisory services. Prior to this, he was Managing Director of the Audit Commission’s Audit Practice. His experience spans financial and value for money audit, organisational leadership and board governance.
Gareth is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy and a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. He is a non-executive Board member of the INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI) which supports Supreme Audit Institutions in developing countries to sustainably enhance their performance and capacity.
