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By stewartb

Imagine if what follows had been in a report from Audit Scotland and concerned the auditing of government accounts in Scotland. I missed this from the National Audit Office (NAO) back in July, presumably because of little or no mainstream media coverage.

Source: National Audit Office – ‘Spending watchdog disclaims government’s accounts again’ – Press release, 17 July 2025

(https://www.nao.org.uk/press-releases/spending-watchdog-disclaims-governments-accounts-again/)

‘The Whole of Government Accounts (WGA) 2023-24 has been disclaimed by the head of the National Audit Office, for the second successive year

‘As for 2022-23, the cause is the lack of audited accounts for English local authorities, with the consequence that there is inadequate assurance over material amounts throughout the WGA.

‘Only 4% of English Local Authorities were able to produce audited accounts for inclusion in the 2023-24 WGA, in comparison to 10% in 2022-23 .’

The NAO press release also has this: ‘The WGA is a vital tool in the management and scrutiny of public spending, as it brings together all public sector assets and liabilities covering more than 10,000 departments, agencies and other government organisations.  

‘However, in England, of the 407 local authorities that should have submitted audited information into the WGA, 167 or 41% didn’t submit data at all. A further 55%, or 224, submitted data based on unaudited accounts. Only 16 or 4% of English local authorities submitted adequate audited data.    (my emphasis)

‘By comparison, in 2022-3, 10% of English local authorities submitted reliable data, 46% submitted unaudited data, and 44% didn’t submit any data at all.’

We also have this from the NAO’s website: ‘Gareth Davies, the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG), has disclaimed his opinion on the financial statements, providing no assurance to Parliament on the financial statements.’

It’s not hard to envisage BBC Scotland and others’ headlines, and opposition parties’ outrage, if this was coming from Audit Scotland!

Is this not about the accounts of a government that is Scotland’s government too? Is this not about a Parliament that also rules over Scotland that for a second year cannot be given important ‘assurance’ from the UK’s Auditor General? And yet, did anyone spot any new coverage in Scotland of this NAO report?