Whole of Government Accounts 2018–19 Contents

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Introduction

The WGA is a unique document which provides the most complete and accurate picture available of the UK public sector finances. The WGA is a set of financial statements prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), which brings together information on the financial performance and position of over 9,000 organisations across the UK public sector, including: central government departments; local authorities; devolved administrations; the NHS; academy schools; and public corporations such as the Bank of England. In 2018–19, the WGA included net expenditure (total expenditure less income) of £56.2 billion and net liabilities (the difference between assets and liabilities) of £2.5 trillion. The Treasury published WGA 2018–19 on 21 July 2020, 15 months after the end of the financial year. The Comptroller & Auditor General again qualified his opinion on the 2018–19 accounts as a result of longstanding financial reporting issues. The Committee has previously recommended that the Treasury: use the WGA to provide better insight into how well the government is managing risks to fiscal sustainability, including providing more information on how well government is performing against its key policy objectives relating to managing fiscal risks; ensures that users of the accounts have access to the information they find valuable in the WGA and make improvements in harmonisation of the information provided by individual components; and that the Treasury focuses its efforts on making the WGA as useful as possible to its users, whether that be through bringing the publication earlier or through enhancing the insight it provides.