Appointment of the Chair of the National Audit Office

Chloe Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Miss Chloe Smith)]

It is an honour to support the Prime Minister and the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) on the motion to appoint Professor Sir Andrew Likierman as chair of the new National Audit Office. I should like to echo the tributes of other Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) and for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon), regarding the fine contribution that Professor Likierman has already made as shadow chairman of the National Audit Office and his qualifications for the role.

Since becoming shadow chairman, Sir Andrew has done tremendous work to establish the shadow board as an effective and authoritative governance body. This has set the basis for the future as the NAO takes on its full responsibilities. As the House is aware, the new governance arrangements for the NAO were enacted following a report by the Public Accounts Commission in the previous Parliament. That report recommended that the NAO, led by the Comptroller and Auditor General, should remain the Government’s auditor, independent of Government and answerable directly to Parliament through the commission. The commission also recommended that the NAO should be a corporate body, with existence separate from, but providing resources and support to, the Comptroller and Auditor General.

The new NAO will have a board with a majority of non-executives, including an independent non-executive chair, who will be a Crown appointment, appointed by the Crown in the same way as the Comptroller and Auditor General. The Comptroller and Auditor General will have a fixed 10-year term—previously it was unlimited—and remuneration of the CAG will be agreed by the Prime Minister and the Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts, rather than being linked to permanent secretaries’ remuneration. The report also recommended that the NAO’s audit reports continue to be laid in Parliament, and that the Committee of Public Accounts should continue to hold scrutiny hearings on some of them.

The report’s recommendations were accepted by the previous Government, and provision was included in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill, which received cross-party support in the Commons. As the House will be aware, those clauses were lost in the other place during the wash-up stage before the general election, but this year the Government included the provisions in the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Act 2011. The governance reforms envisaged in the provisions strengthen the independence and accountability of the Comptroller and Auditor General in holding the Government to account.

These reforms are entirely in line with the coalition Government’s commitment to transparency and accountability in the public finances, including by implementing whole of Government accounts. As the right hon. Member for Barking noted, effective independent oversight of the efficiency of Government spending is especially important when public resources are under pressure, and these reforms are intended to ensure that the Comptroller and Auditor General and the NAO can fulfil that role.

I support the motion and Sir Andrew Likierman’s appointment as the first independent chairman of the new National Audit Office.

Question put and agreed to.