My Lords, this is a very interesting amendment. I just wanted to add one other perspective. Any local authority worth its salt, particularly in this time of outsourcing, when so much is being outsourced to outside companies and bodies, will insist—as I have always insisted in my own local authority—that it has a right within the contract with the outside contractor to be able to audit the documents of the outside contractor. The place to do all the
things that my noble friend has suggested is very often within the contract between the local authority and the contractor.
How that works in practice is that the local authority and its internal auditors need to see what the audit processes are within that outside contractor. The idea that the auditor of the local authority will go in on a normal basis and delve into the detailed books and records of the outside contractor is probably stretching the imagination a bit. The trouble with audits—this is where the noble Lord, Lord Wills, really hits the nail on the head—is that they are, in general, historical and you are looking at what went wrong. The noble Lord, Lord Wills, gave two good examples of what went wrong. The question to the noble Lord, Lord Wills, is: if the Government or the local authority have the ability to go in and audit the sort of companies and organisations the noble Lord described, would they have found these particular problems at that stage?
The noble Lord, Lord Wills, is on to a very important point. But I believe—and I hope that my noble friend the Minister will tell your Lordships’ House—that those protections of being able to audit should be more properly contained within the contract between the local authority and the outside body to which it is contracting.