On 26th November, the Government’s spending watchdog, the National Audit Office (NAO), refused to sign off the Whole of Government Accounts – for the first time ever. Their press release was clear in its blame for this unprecedented action; the crisis of local audit resulting in the huge backlog of unaudited council accounts in England. There have been warnings about the likelihood of this scenario and – having analysed local audit’s problems for several years – we are unsurprised. ...
