Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, when his Department last undertook an assessment of the adequacy of the audit arrangements for recipients of (a) Official Development Assistance and (b) grants issued by his Department.

DFID commissions all of its programming activities to be compliant with the best practice programme delivery framework – the Smart Rules. All programmes must be compliant with the Smart Rules which are designed to accord with the public financial management legislation for grants and, where applicable, with EU procurement regulations for private sector contracts.

Before DFID authorises any payments to awarded grants and/or contracts, due diligence assessments or competitive tendering procedures are undertaken to assess the relative strengths and weaknesses of the potential recipient organisation. This will include assessing governance procedures and the recipient’s own capabilities of oversight and audit of sub-partners. We also test a range of additional qualitative standards such as their capabilities in financial management, programme management, environmental/social responsibility, safeguarding and ethical trading.