DRAFT CLAUSES ON THE CORPORATE
GOVERNANCE OF THE NATIONAL AUDIT OFFICE
1. In March 2008 we published our response to John
Tiner's review of the corporate governance of the National Audit
Office (NAO).[1] At the
same time, the Government agreed to make provision in the Constitutional
Renewal Bill for those parts of our proposals which required legislation.
We are now publishing as Appendix 1 to this report a paper by
the NAO setting out how our proposals might be taken forward.
We endorse the NAO's paper. The draft clauses and explanatory
notes (Appendices 2 and 3) embody these proposals, and also reflect
our decision that the NAO Board should have nine members with
a non-executive majority of one[2]
and our proposal for a prohibition on a former Comptroller and
Auditor General (C&AG) accepting any post in any body which
the C&AG has audited or which is in the gift of the Government.
Our view is that this should be a lifetime prohibition. We
will also be considering further with the NAO and the Treasury
how we would set and uprate the C&AG's remuneration under
the proposals set out in the draft clauses.
2. The draft clauses (presented here as a free-standing
Bill) will need to be reviewed by Parliamentary Counsel prior
to inclusion in the Constitutional Renewal Bill. Although technical
refinements may be required, we consider that the draft clauses
offer a pragmatic, workable way of implementing our proposals.
They recognise the unique position of the C&AG and meet our
twin objectives of preserving the independence of the C&AG
and at the same time strengthening the corporate governance of
the NAO. We commend the draft clauses published here as the basis
for the clauses that the Government has agreed to incorporate
in the Constitutional Renewal Bill.
1 Fifteenth Report, Corporate Governance of the
National Audit Office: Response to John Tiner's Review, 2007-08,
HC 402. Back
2
Instead of the proposal in HC 402, para 11, for a Board of seven
members. Back
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