Transparency and Accountability in public bodies – a seminar with the National Audit Office

Summary of the recent PCF seminar with Amyas Morse, chief Comptroller and Auditor General at the National Audit Office, with particular focus on the areas of transparency and accountability.

The National Audit Office (NAO) helps parliament hold Secretary of States to account for the efficiency and effectiveness of the economy. It reports on the value for money in departments and projects.

The NAO has 3 primary strategic themes, all of which are enabling in nature:

• mature financial management
• cost effective government
• informed government (appropriate use of information in government).

The NAO champions effective and appropriate financial management and increases quality.

The public sector is increasingly information driven; this needs to be understood and integrated into finance.

It is important to recognise that public audit is very different to private audit.

Transparency

- Transparency should be contextualised, standardised, timely, accurate and high quality.

- It is a powerful motivator (fear of embarrassment through exposure)

- Transparency takes on a lot of the same characteristics as management information. These two things should be approached in the same way. Information should be structured, detailed and maintained.

- People should produce the information that is needed to run organisations effectively –the cost benefit and value for money should always be a principle consideration.

- Achieving useful transparency is difficult and this needs to be acknowledged.

- Implementing transparency can create a fear of precedent. Information is power, and people can be fearful of letting go of this power.

Accountability

Both the NAO and Chairs of public bodies have an important role to play in improving accountability.

There is a risk that Departments operate on a compliance basis rather than questioning what they are doing these things for. NAO and Chairs have a key role to play in helping Departments to think in a different way.

Focus needs to be on the sponsoring unit within Departments. There is a tendency for the civil service to be pre-occupied with policy development, and not with running a business or achieving value for money.

Discussion focused on some key areas:

- Department boards and public body boards

- How to ensure Chairs are aware of private issues
The role of the Board:

- There is an issue of accounting officer versus board; it is difficult to find a coherent statement about what the board is about. What is the role of the board beyond advisory?

- There is often a desire for public boards to operate similarly to those within the private sector, but this needs to be reconciled with the role of the accounting officer.

- There is also a risk that boards become like stakeholder boards, without the necessary skills in place, which can result from a lack of understanding. A change in management skills is needed.

- Boards need people who are sharp commercially and who push value for money.

- The Audit Committee has a powerful role to play.

Risk management

Is risk management as good as it can be? The NAO has a campaign for a more intelligent approach to risk management. Audit and risk could be an area to develop in Amyas Morse’s role.

Outcome

The Public Chairs’ Forum and the NAO have overlapping agendas and it was agreed that both sides would look for ways to continue working together in the future. Anything that can be done to get people more engaged in this agenda is important.