§ Mr. Dobsonasked the Secretary of State for Social Services which regional and district health authorities have employed their appointed auditors or firms with which they are associated to undertake work in addition to that relating to their duties as auditors.
§ Mr. NewtonThe external audit of health authorities' accounts is normally undertaken by the Department's National Health Service audit branch. As an experiment, the Department has contracted with nine accountancy firms to undertake the audit of 14 district health authorities. We have advised these firms that they should not accept other work from the authorities to which they have been appointed.
Health authorities may also engage outside firms to provide their internal audit service. We do not collect information centrally about such arrangements.