The Whole of Government Accounts (WGA) consolidates the accounts of over 10,000 public organisations, including central government departments, local authorities, devolved administrations, the NHS and public corporations, to provide the most complete and accurate picture of the UK’s public finances.
It is designed to provide Parliament and the wider public with a comprehensive view of the government’s overall accounts.
For a number of years, the local audit crisis has reduced the usefulness and reliability of the data in the WGA, preventing the National Audit Office from signing them off for the first time ever in 2022-23. The PAC’s scrutiny of the WGA 2023-24 warned that the reliability of this important document continued to be undermined by missing and unaudited data. It further found that the WGA was still failing to achieve its full potential due to poor-quality data, with the volume of unaudited data within it growing significantly (from 211 entities in 2021-22 to 280 in 2023-24).
Based on the National Audit Office’s report on the Whole of Government Accounts 2023-24, the PAC will take evidence from senior government officials as it conducts its own scrutiny of the WGA.
The Committee will be seeking written evidence submissions in due course.