Pickles to Disband Audit Commission

CLG Secretary Eric Pickles has announced plans to disband the Audit Commission and refocus audit on helping local people hold councils and local public bodies to account for local spending decisions. The changes will pass power down to people, replace bureaucratic accountability with democratic accountability and save the taxpayer £50 million a year. The audit expertise of the Commission will be moved into the private sector. The Audit Commission's responsibilities for overseeing and delivering local audit and inspections will stop; the Commission's research activities will end; audit functions will be moved to the private sector; councils will be free to appoint their own independent external auditors. This will save council taxpayers' money and decentralise power. Ministers believe that the work of the Commission has increasingly become less focused on accountability to citizens and more on reporting upwards to Government, judging services largely against top down Government imposed targets. Read more on the CLG website.