In the wake of the calls, there has been growing concern that its remit has over the years become “artificially restricted”.
In a statement, chief secretary to the Treasury Andrew Smith said that the government had accepted Sharman’s recommendations and would give the Comptroller and Auditor-General, who heads the office, the powers to scrutinise RSLs and their regulator.
The report listed five central recommendations, including a call for it to audit all non-departmental public bodies such as the corporation.
It also stated that the comptroller should have statutory access to the documents needed for the audit work, and that this should replace the current non-statutory arrangements.
National Housing Federation deputy chief executive James Tickell (pictured) said: “It’s unnecessary double regulation. Housing associations already cooperate with the National Audit Office and will continue to do so.”
The government this week issued its response to the Public Accounts Committee’s inquiry into corporation regulation of risk management.
The quango will produce annual reports on the financial performance of the sector.
Agreeing it was necessary to revise the pass/fail benchmarks used to assess RSLs’ financial viability and solvency, it said that from April this year new rations and benchmarks will be used to grade financial returns.
The corporation said that it had also re-organised its field area teams, in order to gain more consistency in its regularity assessments between offices.
Source
Housing Today
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