I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for confirming that he is content with these amendments. As regards the
query of my noble friend Lord Shipley about the health and well-being boards, the arrangements for reporting on the accounts and the value for money conclusion, I shall give him what I have and, if I need to, perhaps we can follow up the matter after the debate.
The Bill places auditors of both health and local government bodies under a duty to satisfy themselves that the body has made proper arrangements for securing economy, efficiency and effectiveness in its use of resources, which is known as the value for money conclusion. Unlike local government, the accounts of health bodies are consolidated within their sponsor Whitehall department resource account. Local authorities, on the other hand, are directly accountable to the local electorate in a way that health service bodies are not. Because of the different accountability arrangements for health service bodies, the Government consider it necessary to put the requirement to have opinions on the accounts in the Bill rather than in the code of audit practice, to provide assurance to the accounting officer and Parliament that budgets have been used for the purposes Parliament intended. We believe that it is unnecessary to do this for non-health service bodies because of the statutory power for local auditors to apply to the courts for a declaration that an item of account is unlawful. Furthermore, for non-health service bodies, we expect the code of audit practice will set out what auditors must report against this duty, as is currently the position under the code produced by the Audit Commission. Overall, we consider that this allows for greater flexibility in reporting for non-health service bodies, but for health bodies the different parliamentary accounting framework includes a strict requirement for regularity to be reported on.
I have just been reminded that the health and well-being boards are not included under the provisions of the Bill but I hope that what I have just read out has reassured the noble Lord and your Lordships’ House that value for money is very much part of the consideration of the auditors who will be looking at the health and local government bodies.
I have just been passed another note which I hope may be helpful because I am not sure how much of what I have already read out is entirely helpful to the noble Lord. The provisions in the Local Audit and Accountability Bill on value for money inspections do not cover health service bodies. I think we know that. The NAO’s existing powers in relation to value for money inspections are wider than those in the Bill, so the latter does not need to include provision on this in relation to health service bodies. I think that is the killer point that I have finally got to. On the basis of that additional information, I beg to move.