Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what mechanisms are in place to audit information provided to his Department by (a) regulatory bodies and (b) non-departmental public bodies.

The Department sets out its relationship with each of its arm’s length bodies (ALBs) through a Framework Document. Managing Public Money sets out that: “3.8.2 The framework document (or equivalent) agreed between an ALB and its sponsor always provides for the sponsor department to exercise meaningful oversight of the ALB’s strategy and performance, pay arrangements and/or major financial transactions, e.g. by monthly returns, standard delegations and exception reporting. The sponsor department’s accounts consolidate those of its ALBs so its accounting officer must be satisfied that the consolidated accounts are accurate and not misleading”. The guidance is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/managing-public-money.

A non-departmental public body is required on an annual basis to submit to their sponsoring department an annual report and audited accounts, prepared in accordance with the relevant statutes and guidelines. The annual report and accounts provide the sponsoring department with the financial and non-financial performance of the non-departmental public body. In addition, they will state if the non-departmental public body has met key performance indicators as set out in their business and corporate plans. The accounts for each non-departmental public body is consolidated into the sponsoring Department’s annual report and accounts.

The Department has a two-pronged approach to assure information from departmental group bodies are included in the Department’s consolidated annual report and accounts. We review information against our own expectations of performance as well as external audits completed by the National Audit Office or other competent auditors. Regulatory bodies which are non-ministerial departments are not included in the Department’s consolidated accounts and are not included in this process.

In addition, the Department’s audit and risk committee works with audit and risk committees of other departmental bodies, including regulatory bodies, to provide oversight of risk, assurance and the annual report and accounts.