The Government's Accounts Are Incomplete And Out Of Date - So How Can They Govern Properly?

3rd December 2024

The government's accounts are incomplete and out of date and might fairly be described as completely rubbish approximations to the truth - so how can they govern properly?.

Has the government given up on governing? It's a reasonable question to ask because in the last week it has issued what are called the Whole of Government Accounts.

The Whole of Government Accounts do literally represent everything that the government does or at least, they should, and the important point about the Whole of Government Accounts to which I'm referring is that they are for the year 2022/23, meaning that they are horribly out of date, given that they have been issued in November 2024.

And despite the fact that they are horribly out of date, they are, in fact, also seriously incomplete. The National Audit Office that audits these accounts to tell us whether they show a true and fair view of what the government is up to has had to actually disclaim an opinion on them, which means they literally cannot tell us whether they are fair or not, and the reason why is that 90 per cent of the UK's local authorities could not supply useful information to the National Audit Office or to the government to be included in the accounts in question. And that is extraordinary.

Read the full transcrip at he blog HERE