Our Audit Wales work programme
With a remit extending across most of the Welsh public sector, Audit Wales’ purpose is to assure the people of Wales that public money is well managed; to explain how public money is being used to meet people’s needs; and to inspire and empower the Welsh public sector to improve.
We have been discussing with other UK audit bodies areas of common interest as we all turn our minds to what the current crisis and the response to it means for our respective work programmes.
We recently set out details about how we have responded to COVID-19 in the short-term, including starting some new and quite different work as part of our COVID-19 learning project [opens in new window].
As well as reshaping our existing plans, we are looking at which of the specific areas of COVID-19 expenditure merit more detailed audit scrutiny. We have also been supporting the work of the Welsh Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee in its initial consideration of the Welsh Government’s financial support for business and aspects of the wider Welsh Government response.
We will shortly be publishing a report on public bodies’ counter-fraud arrangements. This work was already well underway before the COVID-19 crisis but the situation has brought certain fraud risks into sharp focus.
We are looking at how we can develop our National Fraud Initiative work to help public bodies target some of these risks.
Other examples of work that we had already been undertaking that is relevant to the current situation include our review of how public bodies have worked together through Public Services Boards to tackle the challenge of rough sleeping. We had also been looking at NHS waiting times and orthopaedic services, work that is now relevant to the question of how NHS services recover from the crisis having put elective care on hold.
We are now firmly in the midst of our annual cycle of statutory work auditing public bodies 2019-20 accounts. This work is a key part of how we assure the people of Wales that public money is well managed, albeit that much of the COVID-19 related expenditure is likely to feature in the accounts for 2020-21.
Meanwhile, our annual structured assessment of NHS bodies’ corporate and financial governance arrangements is just starting and will consider the impact of the COVID-19 crisis and how NHS bodies are approaching recovery planning as we enter the next phase of the pandemic. We plan to share the key themes from this work with a wider audience to promote learning across the NHS and beyond.
We will also be taking forward further work over the summer on the financial sustainability of local authorities and were already planning to produce an over-arching Picture of Public Services report later in 2020-21.