Executive summary
PSAA has consulted with eligible bodies and other stakeholders on our draft prospectus for the national scheme for local auditor arrangements from April 2023, and with the audit services market on important features of its procurement strategy.
The insight provided through these important consultations will help to shape the arrangements that PSAA will develop by building on and evolving the current scheme, ready for the beginning of the next appointing period which will commence with the audits of accounts for 2023/24.
Having carefully considered all consultation responses, the need for system-wide change remains crystal clear. In many areas, it is not within PSAA’s remit to effect the significant change required to address the issues of significance raised. On 29 July, PSAA reported the consultation findings and the specific areas requiring urgent action to the new Local Audit Liaison Committee (Liaison Committee) established by MHCLG, which is attended by senior representatives of local audit stakeholders. PSAA highlighted the need for a range of actions, sometimes by individual organisations but more often collectively across the system, to tackle the identified issues that are essential to support a more stable, more resilient, and more sustainable local audit system. The Liaison Committee will oversee those actions being taken forward.
As might be expected in some areas of the consultation, the responses received from the two constituencies of eligible bodies and suppliers do not fully align. These issues therefore require particularly careful consideration.
PSAA is currently finalising both its prospectus for the national scheme from April 2023 and its procurement strategy. Both documents will be published on the PSAA website in late September 2021, and referenced in the opt-in invitation that will be issued to all eligible bodies at the same time.