By Paul Dicken
15 June 2010
The Welsh public sector is being urged to make organisation-wide changes to improve its financial reporting.
The call comes in an online good practice guide from the Wales Audit Office, which wants financial results to be reported as soon as possible during the year and at the year end.
Anthony Barrett, managing partner for financial audit at the WAO, told Public Finance: ‘Organisations have looked at how they can do things a bit quicker but they’ve got to the stage where that’s no longer good enough.
‘They have to look more holistically and much more widely at how they are organised and managed [in order] to achieve financial reporting in a much more timely manner.’
Barrett said reporting deadlines had come forward, but called on organisations to take advantage of their improved financial management to identify and correct weaknesses in their financial systems. This would help public sector organisations get as much as possible out of the limited resources they had, Barrett said.
The guide also recommends good communication with external auditors and greater involvement in financial reporting across an entire organisation.
