Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.  I am delighted that Jeremy invited me to contribute to this conference.  As Chair of the National Assembly’s Audit Committee; I firmly believe that the Committee, working very much in partnership with the Wales Audit Office, has an important role to play in the movement towards “one public sector for Wales”.

I’m aware that not all of you will be familiar with the activities of the Assembly Audit Committee, so I will begin by setting out our role – how we fit in to the public audit scrutiny that takes place in Wales – before turning to some particular aspects of how we operate. 

The Audit Committee has two functions: it is responsible, on behalf of the National Assembly, for exercising oversight of the work of the Auditor General, including approving (so far) his annual budget; and, what we actually spend nearly all our time doing, carrying out our own investigations on the matters presented to us in the Auditor General’s reports; these investigations culminate in our own published reports.  It’s worth making the point at this stage that, as members of the National Assembly, we have no locus in local government affairs and therefore the focus of our work is very much the central government arena.  This includes the NHS in Wales and local health bodies, Assembly-sponsored public bodies, and further and higher education institutions.

The Committee meets around ten times a year – once a month when the Assembly is sitting.  The main event at our meetings is to take evidence, through question and answer, from the senior official or officials – the Accounting Officers – whose activities are under scrutiny.  Generally we devote one meeting to each subject we examine.  This gives us the invaluable opportunity to look beneath the surface of issues with those who (we hope) understand them best.  On the basis of what we learn from these evidence sessions, together with the Auditor General’s report and any other documentary evidence made available to us, we prepare our own reports.

The Committee approaches its evidence sessions with witnesses.  As a constant member of the Audit Committee since it first met in 1999, and its Chair for much of that time, I am pleased with the way the Committee has conducted its business.  I know that the officials who come to answer our question do not always relish the prospect, and I can understand why.  To be quizzed publicly (our committee sessions are broadcast on S4C2!) on matters which generally have not gone according to plan is obviously not an attractive prospect.  But I hope that those who have appeared before us would agree that the Committee habitually approaches its questions in a structured, logical, non-confrontational manner.  Both I and my colleague, Dafydd Wigley, when he chaired the Committee, have stressed the importance of operating in this constructive, forward-looking way; it is in no one’s interests for Committee members to play to the grandstands in attempting to humiliate hard-working officials who have usually done their best in sometimes very difficult circumstances.

Like the Auditor General, we are not able to question the merits of policy objectives.  We are genuinely a non-partisan committee.  This is why we take evidence from officials – those charged with implementing policy – rather than the Ministers whose main responsibility is to formulate policy.  It is very much to the credit of the Committee’s members that, when acting as Committee members, they have not succumbed to the temptation to seek to make political capital out of the matters that we have investigated.  Behaviour out of the ordinary you might say.  This applies even when we have examined topics as politically sensitive as the procurement of the new Senedd building and NHS waiting times.

The legislation requires that we work very closely with the Auditor General and Wales Audit Office, and there is no problem with that.  Like the Auditor General, there are two elements to our work.  We clearly have a role in reinforcing accountability: as elected representatives of the legislature we hold the executive – the Assembly Government – to account and where things have gone wrong we will say so, clearly and unambiguously.  But we would not be respected if that is all we did, neither would we have secured the good reputation that I think we have.  We therefore aim to balance our retrospective examination of what has happened with positive, constructive forward looks, making recommendations that will help to improve the standards of public services, including matters of propriety, in the future.  Often, of course, these two aspects go together.  A good example is the report we published earlier this year following our investigation into the way the contract for out-of-hours services was handled by Cardiff Local Health Board.  As a committee we had some strong views about some aspects of the LHB’s award and management of that contract, and we did not shy away from expressing them.  But the lessons to be learnt from this instance have a very wide application, not only to other health bodies awarding similar contracts, but potentially to many other public sector organisations.  The recommendations we made in our report were very much with that in mind, with an eye for the bigger picture.  That is the way we generally seek to operate – and the way in which we are at our best.

We are helped in ensuring that our reports have real teeth by the fact that the Assembly Government is required, by statute, to respond to our reports within 30 working days of their publication; in practice this means a detailed response to each recommendation we make.  I am pleased to say that, since our first report was published in March 2000, the Assembly Government has accepted, or partially accepted, over 98 per cent of the recommendations we have made. 

One of the dangers in producing reports with recommendations for improvement is that the initial impetus generated by audit scrutiny gradually fades over time as other challenges present themselves.  To guard against that risk, follow up work has always been an aspect of the Committee’s activities; and this is increasing.  For example, more and more we are requesting audited bodies to provide us with update reports on the progress they are making in implementing our recommendations.  This is not necessarily because we are concerned at the progress being made – although sometimes it is – but may be because we perceive that additional audit scrutiny can be a valuable spur to further action.

In talking about the Audit Committee you will notice that I have referred a number of times to the Auditor General, and that is no accident.  The legislation which governs the activities of both the Auditor General and the Audit Committee makes explicit the very close links that are in place.  For example, the Auditor General is required to consult the Audit Committee before he finalises his programme of value for money studies each year; and the Auditor General advises the Committee on possible lines of questioning for witnesses, and on the formulation of its reports.  We are partners, where our strengths complement each other: the Wales Audit Office brings the resources and the expertise to analyse in detail; we have the political clout, and public visibility to help ensure that promises and improvements are delivered.  Together, we are a powerful force for good.

I hope that I have left you with the clear impression that I am genuinely proud of the work of the Committee.  Almost all our work takes place in public, and I would therefore encourage you to have a look on the Assembly website at what we have been up to in the past and what we will be doing in the future.  Indeed, if you’re passing why not come along to the new Assembly building in Cardiff Bay and watch one of our meetings.

Thank you for listening to me.  (I would be happy to take a few questions if time permits).

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