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About us

Role

The role of the National Audit Office is to:

• Audit the accounts of all government departments and agencies as well as a wide range of other public bodies
• Report to Parliament on the economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which these bodies have used public money.

The Audit and inspection rights are vested in the head of the National Audit Office, the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG).  The staff of the National Audit Office carry out these tasks on his behalf. 

Parliament, the public sector and the citizen

• We hold government to account for the way it uses public money.

• We support, by helping public service managers improve performance.

• We safeguard the interests of citizens who as taxpayers are responsible for paying for public services.
• We champion the interests of citizens as users of public services.

Independence

• The Comptroller and Auditor General is an Officer of the House of Commons, appointed by the Queen on an address proposed by the Prime Minister with the agreement of the Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts and approved by the House of Commons.
• He appoints the professional staff, currently numbering around 850, of the NAO who are not civil servants and therefore independent of government.
• The C&AG and the NAO have comprehensive statutory rights of access to the bodies we audit.
• Our budget is set by Parliament, not the Government of the day. About a fifth of our budget comes from income generated, including audit fees paid by our international clients.
• Oversight of the NAO is carried out by the Parliamentary Public Accounts Commission who appoint our external auditors and scrutinise our performance.

Other bodies

The NAO does not audit local government spending, publish statistical information or audit the spending of the devolved governments in the rest of the UK. 

For Local Government spending  - see the:  Audit Commission

For UK Statistics  - see the: Office for National Statistics

For Government spending in the rest of the UK - see: Audit Scotland, Wales Audit Office, Northern Ireland Audit Office