The National Audit Office (NAO) is the UK’s independent public spending watchdog. Our role is to support Parliament in holding the government to account for the money it spends. We do this in two main ways. We examine and report on the value for money of government spending, and we audit the government’s annual accounts. We audit over £1tn of central government spending across more than 400 public bodies. 

The Financial Audit Practice and Quality team is responsible for ensuring our financial audit methodology and approach complies with professional standards and meets best practice, by developing our audit methodology and guidance and responding to consultation and advice requests from front-line audit teams. 

The general election and its impact 

When a general election is called, and Parliament is dissolved, this has several implications for us. In terms of scheduling, there are two key considerations.

First, it’s important that we uphold our reputation for independence and impartiality at all times. This is particularly important during periods of heightened political sensitivity such as a general election. When Parliament is dissolved, our work continues, but we do not publish value-for-money reports or issue public statements. 

Secondly, certified accounts cannot be laid in Parliament when it is not in session. The Head of the NAO is the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) – and one of his responsibilities is to formally certify the audited accounts. We seek to minimise the time between the C&AG’s certification and laying in Parliament. In practice, that means C&AG does not certify audited accounts during Parliamentary recess.

Because we could not publish reports while Parliament was dissolved, this meant that when the new Parliamentary session started after the election, we published 13 value-for-money reports simultaneously. The C&AG also resumed certification of a large volume of 2023/24 accounts.

Central government accounts for 2023/24

We conduct all our audits in line with ISAs (UK). The final step in our process is certification – when the C&AG formally signs off the audit. Once the C&AG has certified the accounts, it’s important that they are laid in Parliament without delay.

Government bodies (rather than the NAO) are usually responsible for laying accounts once certified. They have internal processes to follow, including obtaining a scheduling slot and ministerial clearance. We liaise closely with their finance and reporting teams to ensure the C&AG’s certification takes place shortly before the scheduled laying date.

Because Parliament was dissolved for the general election campaign at the end of May and the State Opening of Parliament was not until 17 July, it meant that the window for certified accounts to be laid was closer to two and a half weeks rather than the typical two and a half months from May to mid-July. 

We responded by collaborating with HM Treasury and audited bodies to adhere to the original audit schedules as closely as possible. After our teams completed their audit procedures, we conducted a ‘shadow certification' process to streamline the final work required and ensure readiness for ‘live’ certifications. This enabled audited accounts to be submitted and laid in Parliament promptly, once Parliament returned.

How 2023/24 compares with 2022/23

One impact of the pandemic was to cause delays to many accounts and audits. We continue to target bringing more audits back to a pre-recess timetable where we are confident this will not put audit quality at risk. We believe that timely reporting is better for accountability and a key part of a high-quality system of audit and accountability.

Despite having a significantly shorter timeframe for certifying accounts, and with some accounts held back because, for example, they were pending approval by new ministers or for quality reasons, we finalised more than 220 audits before the pre-recess deadline. That’s well over half of the accounts we are responsible for auditing and included complex accounts such as departmental groups and the BBC. Remarkably, in one week alone, the C&AG certified the accounts of HMRC, DWP, and approximately 100 other audits. This achievement reflects the efforts of the finance teams at audited bodies and NAO auditors.

While the impact of the election timing meant the number of accounts meeting a pre-recess timetable was a little below that of the previous year, we were still able to bring some big audits back to a pre-recess delivery, including the Home Office. As we head into the 2024/25 audit cycle, we are continuing our focus on delivering the majority of our audits to a pre-recess timetable.

The roll out of Apex and new initiatives

Audit quality is our number one priority and Apex is our new audit management platform. We’ve designed it to support high-quality, efficient audit through more standardisation, guided workflows and automation where we can. Apex is fully cloud-based and this helps us work more collaboratively, with greater visibility of project tasks and progress. We’ve also made significant changes to our audit methodology. 

We piloted it in 2022/23 across a small group of audits, and launched it across all our audits for the 2023/24 audit cycle, combined with our new audit methodology. So we’ve been on a big learning curve over the past year. Our new system gives us much better management and quality information. For example, we can see real-time progress on audits much more easily. This helps us identify which audit teams are affected by particular financial reporting issues, enabling more targeted support and helping us address potential quality risks before they crystallise. 

Other than the roll-out of Apex, in the short term we are seeking to equip parliamentarians old and new with relevant insights from our work to support them in their roles.

We are also working on the scheduled update of our five-year NAO strategy (from 2025). We’ll be looking at how we can maximise our impact on accountability, value for money and outcomes for citizens once the new government’s agenda is clear.