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Public Accounts

My hon. Friend is right, and it is nice to hear a contribution that celebrates our success in winning the games and is upbeat about our ability to deliver them. We already know that we are ahead of previous games in terms of preparation and planning, including in securing flows of private funding and sponsorship. Our public investment has generated private investment of about £1.5 billion in the Olympic village and £6 billion in Stratford. To respond to what the hon. Member for Gainsborough said about preparations, there is one body, and ultimately one individual, with overall responsibility for delivery, and beneath them there are clear reporting lines, as set out in the Treasury minutes. The Olympic board is overseeing preparations for the games. That is being co-chaired by my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Olympics and the Mayor of London, and the Minister for the Olympics reports directly to the Prime Minister. It is also incorrect to state that strong monitoring and risk management arrangements are not in place. They have been explained in the Treasury minutes. I wish now to discuss broader Government initiatives by briefly addressing five areas that might be of interest to Members. On 9 October, the Chancellor announced in his comprehensive spending review plans that will release £30 billion for reinvestment. The next stage will be for Departments to publish value-for-money delivery agreements by the end of the year. That will set out publicly how they will achieve their value-for-money savings. From then on, they will report biannually on their performance to ensure that the public are informed of progress towards meeting the value-for-money targets. As the hon. Member for Gainsborough has called for breakdowns of departmental performance, I anticipate that he will be keen to read them. The Government welcome the National Audit Office's continued vigorous interest in scrutinising the process to ensure that it achieves its goals. A second area of great interest is the progress of the Government Department capability reviews. Fifteen Departments have already been reviewed, and the findings are published on the Cabinet Office website. We await with intense interest the results on the final two Departments: Revenue and Customs and my own Department, the Treasury. They should be published by winter 2008 at the latest. Furthermore, we are keen to ensure that this process has teeth, so once initial reviews are published, each Department has three follow-up board meetings to review progress against the findings. Thirdly, there are the Sharman orders. In response to Lord Sharman's report ““Holding to Account””, the Government announced that they would strengthen the statutory powers of the National Audit Office's Comptroller and Auditor General. Parliament has approved a number of orders to give the CAG statutory audit responsibility for non-departmental public bodies and special health authorities. Lord Sharman also recommended that the CAG become auditor of the non-departmental public bodies that have also been set up as companies, and he will become eligible to do so from the financial year 2008-09, once the Companies Act 2006 is in force. The Treasury is working closely with the NAO and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform—the successor to the Department of Trade and Industry—to ensure that the changes are implemented from April 2008, and to date 90 companies and subsidiary companies have been identified. When the powers are in place, the NAO will be able to offer Parliament a more comprehensive account of public business, so hon. Members will have a fuller picture of how public money is used. Fourthly, I commend to the House a short and readable new Treasury publication ““Managing Public Money””. It is now the Treasury's reference guide on standards and ethics in the use of public funds. Its predecessor, ““Government Accounting””, had been around for many years and was an essential tool for all parts of the public sector, but over time it had become too lengthy and unwieldy. The new publication is much shorter, and is drafted to set out the principles that need to be applied. It is important for everyone making decisions relating to the use of public resources to appreciate the high standards expected. Of particular interest to the House will be the guidance to officials on parliamentary and Treasury controls over public expenditure and the need for legislation to enable Government spending. Copies of ““Managing Public Money”” have been sent to the Library and to the relevant parliamentary Committees—and they are doubtless in fantastically high demand. I hope that the fifth initiative that I wish to explain will ease all our work in monetary scrutiny. On 3 July, the Prime Minister announced his goals for constitutional change and proposed that the Executive become more accountable to the public and Parliament through 12 reforms. In addition, the Government are committed to enabling the close scrutiny of public spending, for which reliable information is a prerequisite. We have a strong track record of improving financial management and transparency over the past decade, but in one area Parliament's task has been complicated by the ways in which records of public money have been formatted. Largely for historical reasons, we use different systems to set the control budgets, to present the annual estimates and to publish audited accounts. The accounts produced are all accurate and comply with their own reporting principles, but it is not easy, for instance, to compare planned expenditure with actual expenditure when using these systems. The differences between those outputs can cause confusion and inefficiency, so the task of parliamentary scrutiny of public spending is made more difficult than it need be. The Government have therefore put in place an alignment project. In practical terms that will involve substantial effort, but it will help us progress in respect of the need for clarity, coherence, consistency and transparency, and therefore better accountability. The core part of the project is a better alignment of budgets, estimates and accounts, but it has wider implications. We will also be reviewing the frequency, format and terminology of all financial documents laid before Parliament. We aim to put changes in place by the end of the CSR 2007 period, subject to legislative requirements. The Government look forward to consulting Parliament to take that project forward, and will work closely with the Public Accounts Committee and the NAO on its detailed implementation. I hope and believe that it will be a welcome step towards making the various systems used to control and report on public spending easier to understand and more efficient to operate. Finally, many happy returns to the PAC, which is 150 years old. I do not know what the symbol is for 150th anniversaries, but perhaps in the case of the PAC it should be a magnifying glass. I have been looking at the records of some old debates. I found one from 102 years ago, in which it emerged that the Admiralty had spent nearly £500,000 without having signed a contract to do so. It seems that some things never change, despite all our best efforts. All of us who have been involved are proud of the way in which the PAC is constituted and does its job for Parliament. It provides an invaluable service to all of us, and I wish it a happy anniversary and many more years.