My Lords, I will speak to these amendments, although sitting next to me is my noble friend Lord Tope, in whose name Amendment 14ZA stands. I hope the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, will confirm that we have already dealt with the collaborative basis and the fact of buying centrally. Even I was a late adherent to this, but I think we agree that in one form or another that is the way to go forward, however it can be arranged, although there were numerous alternatives. As the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, has said, there are going to be significant savings, which is something that we cannot ignore.
I have one question about a sentence in Amendment 14ZA on the appointment of a new auditor, or the re-appointment of an existing auditor, to,
“audit its accounts for a financial year not later than 31 December in the preceding financial year”.
Both the Bill and the amendment say that that appointment should be made not later than 31 December in the preceding year. I cannot work this out in practical terms. Let us say that KPMG is the auditor of a local authority or group of local authorities; it has not finished its accounts and the accounts will not be signed off until, at the earliest, the end of January the following year. That company could be under notice, according to the amendments, that it may not be, or could not be, the auditor for the ensuing year. While KMPG is finishing off its audit—the accounts will not have been finished and signed off by the relevant person in the local authority, who in my local authority
is me, so I am told; I have done it three years in a row—a new auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, perhaps, will have been appointed.
I worry about how that will affect the mindset of the auditor who is being replaced. Enshrining within the Bill that the auditor has to be appointed by 31 December within that year will cause moral, and sometimes practical, difficulties. Perhaps the Minister will take this issue back and consider whether the wording should be “could be appointed by 31 December” or “as soon as possible by that date”. I worry how the changeover, if there be a changeover, will affect the performance of the outgoing auditor.