Our Annual Plan, which was published on 1 April 2020, set out the steps we were intending to take in 2020-21 towards achieving our organisational ambitions and strategic objectives. However, shortly before publication we were overtaken by the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Our Interim Report provides a summary of the adaptations we have made to the original work programmes set out in our Annual Plan in response to the pandemic. Our report also illustrates the progress we have made over the last six months in delivering those adapted plans.

What we’ve done since April

Since the start of lockdown, we stopped on-site work at audited bodies, closed our own three offices and asked all staff to work from home. We quickly developed communication channels to ensure colleagues remain connected and conducted regular staff pulse surveys to understand staff needs and provide feedback.  

This included obtaining remote access to financial systems and developing electronic file sharing arrangements to allow our work to continue.  

We remain on track to deliver our full programme of audit of accounts work.

We have also reshaped our value for money study programmes, nationally and at individual audited bodies, to recognise and support the public sector’s response to the pandemic.

In addition, we established our COVID-19 learning project. Using our established network of contacts across the public service we’re able to capture examples of novel and innovative good practice, playing those back in close to real time.