Pickles scraps Audit Commission
The Audit Commission is to be scrapped, the government announced today.
Communities and Local Government secretary Eric Pickles said the quango, which is responsible for inspecting the country’s public services, had ‘lost its way’ and that scrapping it would save £50 million.
Ministers are now working on a new ‘decentralised’ system, which will come into effect from 2012/13. The Commission’s audit functions will move to the private sector, and councils will be free to appoint independent auditors.
The local government ombudsman’s findings will also become legally enforceable.
A statement from the Communities and Local Government department said: ‘Councils and local health bodies will still be subject to robust auditing.
‘Protections will be developed to ensure independence, competence and quality, including audit quality regulated within a statutory framework overseen by the National Audit Office and profession.’
Mr Pickles said: ‘I want to see the Commission’s auditing function become independent of Government, competing for future audit business from the public and private sector.
‘These proposed changes go hand in hand with plans to create an army of armchair auditors – local people able to hold local bodies to account for the way their tax pounds are spent and what that money is delivering.’
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Readers' comments (58)
Anonymous | 13/08/2010 5:21 pm
Tenant ServicesAuthority - doomed
National Tenant Voice - scrapped
Audit Commission - scrapped
Local Housing Allowance- capped
Housing Benefit - capped for unemployed
Secure Tenancies - doomed
All out attack on social housing & anything attached to it.
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kass | 13/08/2010 5:53 pm
the audit commission was nothing but a slave to social landlords. this is the only good thing to be scrapped so far.
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Bernard Townroe | 13/08/2010 5:57 pm
kass, if you really think that the Audit Commission was a slave to social landlords, aside from the fact that I think you're wildly wrong, I suggest you consider where you will be going - delivered into the tender mercies of the private sector. And if you think that will improve the lot of tenants, then I'm afraid you are and will be very sadly mistaken. I'm not fan of some of the Commission's work but if anyone wanted rid of it, this will prove the truth of the maxim that we should all be careful of getting what we wish for.
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Anonymous | 13/08/2010 5:58 pm
Tenants will be rejoicing in the streets.
The AC was captured long ago by the landlords. Its audits were nothing more than homilies of celebration to the wondrous achievements of the boys and girls in the town halls.
The question now is whether Pickles will allow the bureaucrats to regroup and recongeal. Audit should be opened up to the stakeholders, principally to tenant scrutiny and accountability.
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Bernard Townroe | 13/08/2010 6:35 pm
Dear Anonymous, which planet are you on? I'd like to think that it's not the same as any tenant if you really believe the total [rubbish] you've just posted.
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Anonymous | 13/08/2010 6:44 pm
Paying its chief £250k, shelling out £8000 for a day at the races, and another £60k for a lobbying firm to counter Pickles ... a quangocracy way past its bedtime.
If I was earning over £100k in the housing sector I'd be very worried by that spending review coming up in September. The Fat Man swings.
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Dave Hollins | 13/08/2010 6:59 pm
Many of the criticisms are justified - overpaid chief executive and top managers, often very poor quality inspectors with seemingly random outcomes, arrogance.
BUT the existence of the inspection regime had a hugely beneficial effect on services, complacent unaccountable housing association chief executives were taken to task and found badly wanting and had to make improvements, cosy Boards had to face up to the fact they were not as good as their chief executive told them.
SO, how will Pickles make sure that landlords provide decent services? The truth is he has no idea at all how to do this - getting rid of TSA, NTV, AC may save some money but it is not a strategy for improving social housing and services to tenants.
With the HB changes and the threat to security, looks like social tenants really are a target and re in for an appalling time with the Tory/Lib government.
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Anonymous | 13/08/2010 8:59 pm
Quite apart from organisational excess, it was clear looking at some of its KLOEs that it had disappeared up Labour's pc bottom into a fantasy world of targets and monitoring.
Still raises the question about who is going to do the good bread-and-butter work being done by the grunts in the field. Read their reports and they copped the knaves, thieves and hucksters even if they had to tart the words up for NuLab consumption.
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Anonymous | 13/08/2010 9:53 pm
No point trying to spend five years trying to reform an organisation led by bunch of left loonies addicted to the high life.
One fell swoop. What's the betting the poor bloody infantry doing essentially good work will be retained.
Pickles doesn't throw out babies with bathwater.
In that case, contrary to the planet Mr Townroe thinks he's on, the Friday pickling has got to be good news for tenants.
It is to be expected that there will be a ritual humiliation of a different housing management team every other week in Parliament Square.
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Anonymous | 13/08/2010 10:02 pm
Actual memo to AC staff follows, cut and pasted from FT:
Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles will tomorrow (Saturday) announce his intention to disband the Audit Commission.
He wrote to Michael O’Higgins, the Commission’s chairman today, saying he wants to ‘refocus audit on helping local people hold councils and local public bodies to account for local spending decisions’.
Nothing happens immediately. The government has reappointed two commissioners to serve terms until 31 December 2012.
In a press statement issued under embargo for tomorrow morning he says ‘the Audit Commission’s responsibilities for overseeing and delivering local audit and inspections will stop; the Commission’s research activities will end; audit functions will be moved to the private sector; councils will be free to appoint their own independent external auditors from a more competitive and open market; and there will be a new audit framework for local health bodies. This will save council taxpayers’ money and decentralise power.’
He goes on: ‘As a result of the changes, the Audit Commission’s in-house audit practice, which is the fifth largest audit practice in the country, will be transferred out of public ownership. A range of options will be developed for converting the audit practice into a business independent of Government which could be sold or otherwise transferred into the private sector.
‘A new decentralised audit regime will be established, replacing the Audit Commission and providing genuine support for local democratic accountability.’
Eugene Sullivan, chief executive, said: ‘I am surprised by this decision. The decision has been taken without any consultation with the Commission on the principles involved, especially that of the independent appointment of auditors. The independence of audit, its disinterested pursuit of good value in public spending, its custodianship of best practice in financial management: these are not to be lightly cast aside.
‘We will need to work on the detail of what the government intends. This is not the end of public audit or the audit practice, even if it will be under different arrangements.’
The government says it wants to ‘work closely’ with the Commission, the accountancy profession, councils and the health service ‘to develop the detailed design of new systems, to take forward the transfer of the in-house audit practice into the private sector.’
Michael O’Higgins said ‘this is very disappointing news for all of us, although I have already been thinking about a more independent future for the audit practice. The management team will do all it can to support you. I am proud of the work you and your colleagues have done over so many years.’
Please treat this as confidential, not to be disclosed outside the Commission untill tomorrow.
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