Appendix 5: National Audit Office Support
for House of Commons Select Committees in 2006: note by the NAO
Introduction
1. The National Audit Office's engagement with Parliament
is based primarily on the work of the Committee of Public Accounts.
But over several years, and with the support of the Public Accounts
Commission, the Office has developed links with other select committees
in both Houses and supported them in a variety of ways. This paper
sets out the support provided to Commons select committees by
the Office in 2006.
The National Audit Office
2. The primary responsibility of the Comptroller
and Auditor General and the National Audit Office is to assist
Parliament in holding government to account for the use of public
resources. The Office does this principally by auditing the financial
statements of all central government departments, agencies and
other public bodies and reporting the results to Parliament; and
by presenting some 60 major value for money reports to Parliament
each year on the economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which
public money has been used to support the delivery of services
for the public.
3. The National Audit Office also has an important
role promoting beneficial change in the provision of public services
drawing on the findings of its work. The Office uses conferences
to promote best practice on issues of general application and
to disseminate findings across sectors where services are run
at the local level. At a more practical, detailed, level, the
Office produces guidance to help managers across the public sector
identify and tackle issues of concern. To assist with this work
the Office has established centres of expertise in areas such
as economics and statistics, efficiency, financial management,
performance measurement, private finance, project delivery, and
regulation.
Supporting the Committee of Public Accounts
4. One of the Office's key roles is to support Parliamentary
scrutiny by assisting the Committee of Public Accounts when it
meets to take evidence from departments on the Comptroller and
Auditor General's reports on the results of its financial audit
and value for money work. The Office provides informal support
to the Committee for the 50 or so meetings a year it holds on
these reports and the Comptroller and Auditor General and National
Audit Office staff attend each hearing.
Supporting Select Committees
5. In addition to supporting the Committee of Public
Accounts, the Office also provides support to other select committees
in their scrutiny of public services and expenditure. This support
can take a number of forms ranging from the provision of formal
evidence for the committee, including evidence-gathering and research
in response to a Committee's request, to informal oral and written
briefings and the secondment of staff with particular expertise
in the area covered by a Committee. In 2006 the Office provided
support to 11 other select committees (listed in table 1 below).
Table 1: The National Audit Office has supported the following Commons select committees in 2006 Communities and Local Government Committee
Culture, Media and Sport Committee
Defence Committee
Environmental Audit Committee
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Health Committee
Home Affairs Committee
Public Administration Select Committee
Transport Committee
Treasury Committee
Work and Pensions Committee
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6. The Office has a particularly well established relationship
with the Environmental Audit Committee and provides regular support
of various kinds. During 2006 the Office provided both formal
and informal support to the Committee, including three published
papers in support of the Committee's work:
- Climate Change Policy: Options for Scrutiny—a
briefing intended to provide the evidence base to enable the Committee
to take forward further work on climate change, including options
for future Committee inquiries.
- Regulatory Impact Assessments and Sustainable
Development—produced in response
to a request from the Committee, this paper assesses the extent
to which recent Regulatory Impact Assessments reflect a new requirement
to consider environmental and social impacts.
- Emissions Projections in the 2006 Climate
Change Programme Review—also produced
in response to a request from the Committee, this paper examines
the emissions forecasts that informed the 2006 Climate Change
Programme Review.
7. The Office has also supported a number of select
committees by providing oral or written briefings on the results
of financial audit or value for money work where relevant to a
committee's inquiry. For example, the Office briefed the Health
Committee on NHS deficits in an informal meeting in July. Similarly,
in November the Office briefed the Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs Committee on the Comptroller and Auditor General's report
on the Single Farm Payment Scheme.[235]
8. The National Office also assisted the Work and
Pensions Committee with its inquiry into the use by the Department
for Work and Pensions of a procedure set out in Section 82 of
the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999 to seek approval for
preparatory expenditure on a new IT system for the proposed Employment
and Support Allowance. This work, the subject of two reports by
the Committee,[236]
included, at the request of the Committee, a report by the Comptroller
and Auditor General on the cost estimates made by the Department
in respect of the use of the Section 82 procedure.
9. The National Audit Office has also provided oral
and written briefings to committees on specific topics, to help
identify areas for committee scrutiny. For example, the National
Audit Office produced a review, The Third Sector and Public
Policy—Options for Committee Scrutiny, for the Public
Administration Select Committee examining the range of interactions
between government and the sector, 'mapping the territory' and
discussing options for an inquiry or series of inquiries by the
Committee.
10. Support to select committees in 2006 included
longer term secondments of National Audit Office staff to the
Defence and Environmental Audit Committees and a short term attachment
of a specialist to the Treasury Committee for a hearing on the
activities of the Debt Management Office. The Office also provides
support to the Committee Office Scrutiny Unit by seconding up
to three staff at a time to the Unit.
235 Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General,
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Rural
Payments Agency: the delays in administering the 2005 Single Payments
Scheme in England, HC 1631, Session 2005-06 Back
236
Work and Pensions Committee, Fifth Report of Session 2005-06,
Power to incur expenditure under Section 82 of the Welfare
Reform and Pensions Act 1999: new Employment and Support Allowance
IT System, and First Report of Session 2006-07, Power to
incur expenditure under Section 82 of the Welfare Reform and Pensions
Act 1999: new Employment and Support Allowance IT System-Further
Report Back
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