Supplementary memorandum submitted by
HM Revenue and Customs
ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS
FROM MR
ALAN WILLIAMS
1. Can the Committee have a copy of the protocols
governing the exchange of data between HMRC and the NAO? How are
these disseminated within HMRC and the NAO?
Liaison arrangements on NAO Audits
There is an established practice for liaising
about the timing and scope of audits and their conduct.
HMRC have a central NAO liaison team that oversees
the programme of various NAO audits. HMRC's practice is to appoint
for each audit a senior official who has overall responsibility
for the audit and a designated contact point to oversee day to
day activity and enquiries and information requests. The details
of these procedures were not formally documented between HMRC
and the NAO, but the HMRC provides internal guidance to each business
area on the handling of NAO enquiries.
NAO provide HMRC with proposals on the scope
and timing of the audit in draft planning documents. These take
the form of audit strategies and plans for financial statement
audits and Section 2 examinations of individual tax or benefit
streams. For VFM audits these take the form of study plans. These
documents specify the information and data requirements for the
audit where these can be identified at the planning stage. As
the audit progresses further detailed requirements for data and
information are identified and the NAO advise the designated contact
point. The NAO provide a clear explanation of why they want to
see particular data and limit requests to that data required to
fulfil their audit responsibilities.
2. Who in HMRC was aware of the level at which
information was given to the NAO in the exchange in March? Why
was it not stopped at that stage as inappropriate?
These issues are currently being looked at by
Kieran Poynter and we await his findings.
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