Should non-financial performance information be audited? The case of public service agreements in UK government

A growing level of controversy surrounds the right of the UK National Audit Office to audit public service agreements (PSA) - documents which detail the performance, against targets, of central government departments. The NAO has not been granted a statutory role, although an independent official review of accountability and audit in UK central government has recently concluded that the external validation of departmental information systems is a crucial first step toward validation of key published data. In considering the NAO's desire to take on the external audit of PSAs, some suspicion must linger over the government's reluctance to sanction such a role. One may become too concerned with the secondary issue of whether an organization is auditable and less concerned with primary matters of what the organization is doing and achieving. This is a message that auditors, both in the UK and internationally, should consider seriously before they end up securing new verification roles that are difficult to perform and, at best, only likely to generate minimal improvements in public-sector accountability and performance.