By Tony Collins
Increasing numbers of local government and NHS officials are paying themselves salaries of £100,000 upwards, and some more than £500,000, but competence in handling public money appears to be diminishing.
Today, the outgoing head of the National Audit Office Amyas Morse expresses “shock”. He said,
“I am shocked by the persistent high level of qualified audit reports at local public bodies.
“A qualification is a judgement that something is seriously wrong, but despite these continued warnings, the number of bodies receiving qualifications is trending upwards.
“Let us hear no cries of ‘where were the auditors?’ when things go wrong. The answer will be ‘they did the job, but you weren’t listening’.
“This is not good enough; local bodies need to address their weaknesses, and departments across government should ensure they are challenging local bodies to demonstrate how they are responding.”
Today’s National Audit Office report “Local auditor reporting in England…
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