By Richard Johnstone | 12 March 2014
The chair of the Public Accounts Committee has pledged that MPs will ‘have a real go’ at maintaining scrutiny of council services following the abolition of the Audit Commission.
Margaret Hodge said the legislation that will close the commission next March would constrain the work of the PAC in examining the effectiveness and efficiency local services, as MPs would be unable to call councils before them.
However, she said that working with the National Audit Office – which will conduct some value-for-money examinations of local government – the committee would attempt to maintain oversight.
‘We are going to have a real go, working with the NAO through the PAC, to try and ensure that we maintain scrutiny over value for money provided through local authority services.
‘A lot of public money goes through local government and it’s our job to do that.’
Speaking at the launch of the Institute for Government's report examining the abolition of the commission, Hodge reiterated concerns that the National Audit Office would be left as the ‘only show in town’ to scrutinise public spending.
‘I think it’s incredibly dangerous for one organisation to be responsible and accountable for following the taxpayer pound in absolutely every organisation that spends it.
‘The National Audit Office was set up for a different purpose – that doesn’t mean it can’t evolve, but it was set up as a department looking at big departments and big contracts.
‘What we have now is a completely different landscape of public services, much more fragmented with a huge diversity of organisations delivering – not only public sector but with private and voluntary providers now delivering more than half of the goods and services provided by the taxpayer pound.’
She questioned whether such a situation could be effective, and predicted something like the Audit Commission would eventually be recreated.
‘It is just scary to think that the only show in town protecting the taxpayer and citizens interest in ensuring effectiveness and efficiency is the National Audit Office. I would be over the moon if somebody would take a serious look to see whether actually all of that is fit for purpose in the new landscape for services that we have got.’
The ability to undertake ‘intelligent analysis’ of the effectiveness and efficiency of local authority spending will be missed, she said.
‘Our ability to do that is going to be constrained, and I think that will be a loss. Something will happen in the future, which I think will put the fear of God into whoever at that point has ministerial responsibility in the department for local government, that will lead to the recreation of some body which will provide better independent oversight over effectiveness and value for money.
‘I see it [the Audit Commission] coming back in some form, probably within a decade, that would be my prediction.’
