DfE criticised over accounts delay
Neil Puffett
Friday, January 29, 2016
The Department for Education has been criticised by a group of MPs after it emerged it has used legislation to extend the deadline by which it has to file its annual accounts.
The government department had, like all other departments, been required to lay its 2014/15 accounts before the House of Commons by 31 January.
But the DfE has today used a form of legislation called a statutory instrument to extend the deadline by which it has to provide its annual to 29 April.
Neil Carmichael, chair of the education select committee, said: “Government departments have 10 months to get their accounts in order and laid before parliament for proper public scrutiny, and most manage with far less.
"Slipping out a statutory instrument to extend the deadline on the last possible day is further evidence of the DfE’s struggle to get its act together on financial matters.
"The committee agreed in December to invite the permanent secretary to explain the department’s plans for academy accounts.
"Today’s events leave us with no alternative but to consider the wider question of financial management at the DfE.”
In recent years, the only instance of the statutory deadline being extended by order for a government department has been 2011/12 accounts from Department for Culture Media and Sport, which were laid on 25 February 2013. The 2012 London Olympics were cited as a major reason for the delay.
It is not the first time the DfE's accounting has come under scrutiny.
In 2012, a report by the National Audit Office found that the DfE had overspent by £1bn on its academy expansion programme in just two years, because it had been “unprepared” for the financial implications of a 10-fold increase in academies from 203 in May 2010 to 2,309 in September 2012.
A DfE spokesman said: “The consolidation of thousands of academies’ accounts is one of the largest procedures of its kind carried out in the UK. Throughout this process the NAO has found no material inaccuracies in the accounts.
“As part of the audit of the 2014/15 accounts, the NAO has requested some additional work. This will mean that the accounts will be laid later this year. We continue to work with the NAO the Treasury and parliament to find a sustainable approach to reporting on the finances of academies.”
