Who will take over the role of the Audit Commission?
The coalition government's decision to drop the Audit Commission in favour of a forecast £50 million a year saving has caused many eyebrows to be raised. The very nature of the Audit Commission is to oversee how taxpayers money is spent by the government, something which David Cameron and George Osborne appeared to be very keen to continue. However, the decision to disband the Audit Commission and lay off potentially 2000 staff leaves UK taxpayer interests relatively unprotected in the short-term.
A number of figures which have been released over the last few days suggest that the Audit Commission has saved the UK taxpayer many times the cost of the commission and has been more successful than ever over the last decade. However, the UK government believes that independent outside monitoring of the way in which taxpayer's money is spent is more efficient and potentially more enlightening. Whether this will be the case or not very much remains to be seen.
So far the coalition government has stripped millions of pounds from the public sector cost base although what impact this will have upon public services in the medium to longer term remains to be seen. It will be interesting to see how the UK government monitors the efficient spending of taxpayer money now that the Audit Commission is set to be cast aside.
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