• Home
• Publications
• About us
  • Vision, mission, values
  • What we do
  • Legislation
  • Relations with other public audit bodies
  • Governance of the NAO
  • History of the NAO
  • Whistleblowing and concerns about public spending
  • Complaints about the NAO
  • NAO Alumni Group
• What's New
• Our work by sector
• Support to Parliament
• Practice Networks
• Guidance & Good Practice
• Careers and jobs
• Conferences and events
• Doing business with us

Legislation underpinning the work of the NAO

The specific powers and duties of the Comptroller and Auditor General and the NAO are laid down in acts of Parliament.

The main acts of parliament are:

The National Audit Act 1983

This laid out the means of appointing the C&AG; set up the Parliamentary Public Accounts Commission; established the NAO and set out how it would operate; allowed for the carrying out of value for money examinations; and provided for the NAO to be audited.

The Government Resources and Accounts Act 2000

This act, and associated Statutory Instruments that have come after it, placed many of the C&AG’s existing audits on a more statutory footing, increased the numbers of Government bodies for which the C&AG was the auditor and widened the NAO’s rights of access to information for audit purposes to groups such as Government consultants.

In addition some provisions of earlier audit acts are still extant:

• Exchequer and Audit Departments Act 1957
• Exchequer and Audit Departments Act 1921
• Exchequer and Audit Departments Act 1866

Other acts of Parliament require individual public bodies to be audited by the C&AG.