Appendix 4: National Audit Office Support
for House of Commons Select Committees in 2007
Introduction
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. In addition to supporting the Committee of Public
Accounts, with the support of the Public Accounts Commission the
National Audit Office has increased the amount of resources available
to support other select committees in both Houses. The Office
provides support within its areas of expertise, such as analysis
of financial statements, value for money, performance evaluation,
regulation, financial management and reporting, and policy implementation.
This paper sets out the support provided to Commons select committees
by the National Audit Office in 2007.
Supporting Select Committees
4. In addition to supporting the Committee of Public
Accounts, the Office provides support to other select committees
in their scrutiny of public services and expenditure. The support
takes 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 2007 the Office provided
support to 11 Commons select committees (listed in table 1 below).
Table 1: The National Audit Office has supported
the following Commons select committees in 2007
Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Committee
(and its predecessor the Trade and Industry Committee)
Communities and Local Government Committee
Defence Committee
Education and Skills Committee
Environmental Audit Committee
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Health Committee
International Development Committee
Public Administration Select Committee
Regulatory Reform Committee
Treasury Committee
Performance briefings for select committees
5. As part of our programme of work aimed at strengthening
financial scrutiny, the National Audit Office produced formal
briefings for the Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Committee,
the Communities and Local Government Committee, and the Defence
Committee on the performance of their respective departments in
2006-07. Designed to assist the committees in the examination
of their department's expenditure and administration, the briefings
were based on material in Departmental Annual Reports and, where
appropriate, on issues that had arisen from the National Audit
Office's mainstream value for money reports and wider work, for
example on regulation, the efficiency programme and performance
system validation, and the action departments had taken in response.
6. The performance briefings aim to assist committees
in navigating and interpreting the substantial amounts of information
available on the performance of specific departments and to identify
areas that committees may wish to explore. Following positive
feedback from the committees concerned, the National Audit Office
has allocated further resources to this area to increase the number
of performance briefs it produces for departmental select committees
in future.
The Environmental Audit Committee
7. The National Audit Office has a long established
relationship with the Environmental Audit Committee and provides
regular formal and informal support of various kinds. During 2007
the Office produced four published papers in response to requests
for support from the Committee:
- Cost-effectiveness analysis
in the 2006 climate change programme review—a
review of the analysis supporting the 2006 Climate Change Programme
Review.
- Central government support for local authorities
on climate change—a briefing paper
providing details of: what funds central government provides to
local authorities on climate change; what expectations or targets
central government has set; and what is known about performance.
- Energy consumption and carbon emissions in government
departments—a review conducted in response to the Committee's
request that the National Audit Office investigate anomalies in
published data for energy consumption and carbon emissions in
government departments.
- The Climate Change Levy and Climate Change
Agreements—a briefing designed to assist the Committee's
consideration of the effectiveness of these two policies as a
whole and their future role in combating climate change.
Other support for select committees
8. The National Audit Office has provided formal
written evidence to a number of select committees. For example,
during the year the Office provided written briefings to the Treasury
Sub-committee on the Debt Management Office's activities and reporting
arrangements; issues concerning the administration of tax credits;
and progress by the Chancellor's departments in meeting their
efficiency targets. Similarly, the Office provided formal written
briefings to the Public Administration Select Committee on the
work of the Cabinet Office in 2006-07 and to the Communities and
Local Government Committee on refuse collection. In response to
a specific request from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Committee, the Office examined British Waterways' finances and
the income available to fund the estimated costs of work required
to maintain British Waterways' assets in a satisfactory condition.
9. The Office has also assisted a number of select
committees by providing oral and written briefings on subjects
to help identify areas for committee scrutiny. For example, the
Office briefed the Trade and Industry on the UK Construction Industry
in October and briefed the Regulatory Reform Committee on the
Administrative Burdens Reductions Programme in November.
10. Support to select committees in 2007 included
secondments of National Audit Office staff to the Defence, Environmental
Audit, and Treasury Committees and a part time attachment of a
specialist to the Public Administration Select Committee to assist
with its inquiry into Third Sector Commissioning. The Office also
provides support to the Committee Office Scrutiny Unit by seconding
two or three staff at a time to the Unit.
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