Public Accounts Committee launches sixteen new inquiries

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) today announces its next slate of upcoming inquiries, providing scrutiny of Government spending and delivery across a range of Government Departments.

The programme of inquiries, to held over the coming months, was selected by members of the Committee, in discussions led by the Chair of the Committee, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP.

Each inquiry is informed by the work of the National Audit Office. Committee members will use reports as a starting point and agreed factual basis from which to conduct their scrutiny to hold government to account for how it spends public money.

The inquiries are as follows:

• Affordability of the Defence Investment Plan
• An analysis of the asylum system
• Environmental regulation
• Financial resilience of government-sponsored museums and galleries
• Government compensation schemes: update*
• Large business tax compliance
• NAO financial audit insights 2024-25
• New Hospital Programme update
• Regulating for growth
• Restoration and Renewal of Parliament: Costing and governance
• Supporting people with frailty outside hospitals
• The Access to Work scheme
• The Bank of England's Real-Time Gross Settlement Renewal Programme
• The MoD's tackling of economic crime and misconduct
• The Work of the COVID Counter-Fraud Commissioner
• Unlocking land for housing

* The Committee's pre-existing inquiry on government compensation schemes will now incorporate a new report from the NAO.

Commenting on the launch of the inquiries, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said: “I would like to thank my fellow Committee members for their input into our forthcoming programme of work. From defence to housing, tackling economic crime to environmental regulation and more, our Committee continues to hold government officials to account on best value for money for the taxpayer.

“As well as our programme of inquiries informed by the NAO's own reports providing the evidence base for our scrutiny, we will be continuing to hold government to account where its implementation of our previous recommendations has not been satisfactory.

“We also have inquiries on the work of the COVID fraud commissioner and the Restoration and Renewal (R&R) of Parliament. This Committee has had a longstanding focus in tackling fraud against the taxpayer, both during the pandemic and more generally, so we look forward to taking evidence on the Commissioner's work with great interest. Separately on R&R, it is important that MPs and the public have a source of information that is reliable so that whatever decisions are made in future are based on real evidence, and that is what our inquiry will seek to provide. This whole matter seems to be drifting without any form of resolution, with a large amount of money at stake. Our constituents, whose money this is, deserve clarity.”