The National Audit Office is a great British institution
- or was.
It was set up by Gladstone, in part to authorise the issuing of
public money to government from the Bank of England, and it now has
the express power to report to parliament at its discretion on how
departments spend our taxes.
This is one reason why, on its website, it says that anyone
concerned about the way public money is being spent should write in
- which is exactly what IT specialists, suppliers, MPs, and
organisations did over the NHS's £12.4bn National Programme for IT
(NPfIT).
These correspondents were then surprised that when the NAO
published its report on the NPfIT their concerns were not reflected
in the main text.
Now we know why. Three draft NAO reports on the NPfIT released
to Computer Weekly under the Freedom of Information Act show that
many of the most serious criticisms of the NPfIT were omitted from
the final publication (see
NAO report: a journey from criticism to
praise).
Between the drafts there had been a "clearance" process with
health officials in Whitehall.
We recognise that facts have to be checked with departments. But
changing wording in such a way as to give a more favourable
impression of the programme, and removing entire passages of
criticisms that had sound, quoted sources, is not the same as fact
checking.
We hope the Public Accounts Committee will take the unusual step
of holding another hearing on the NPfIT - and that the Public
Accounts Commission, which oversees the work of the NAO, will take
a hard look at the specific reasons for the changes to the draft
reports.
The NAO exists to ensure there is no mismanagement of public
funds. It does not exist to write a defence of the NPfIT.
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