Annual report 2021/22
Annual report and accounts 2021/22
2021/22 in numbers
226 Accounts audited
10 National and local performance reports
8 Covid‑19 briefings, reports and technical guides
£45.7bn Payments under Comptroller function
112k Visitors to our website
Chair's welcome
Over the past year, Scotland’s public services have addressed the twin tasks of managing the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and beginning the recovery of Scotland’s communities, services and economy.
As public bodies tackled these challenges, Audit Scotland reshaped its approach to ensure we continued to deliver high quality, independent public audit, at a time when public bodies were under more pressure than they have ever experienced. This has meant learning new ways of delivering audit, as well as refocusing our work to ensure that it addresses the key issues, is flexible and timely, and has the impacts that Scotland needs.
Professor Alan Alexander OBE
Chair of the Audit Scotland Board
Accountable Officer’s report
Over the past year, some of the wider and long-lasting impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic have begun to show themselves in the pressures on public services and public spending.
On behalf of Audit Scotland, I want to thank Scotland’s key workers for saving lives and supporting communities. We’re also grateful for everything they have done to help us start returning to some of the ways of life we enjoyed before the pandemic.
Stephen Boyle
Accountable Officer and Auditor General for Scotland
Our year
Learning and sharing together while apart
Our colleagues spent much of the past year (as in the previous year) working from their kitchens, lounges, spare rooms and bedrooms. In such circumstances, being able to bring colleagues from across Audit Scotland together to discuss the issues facing public bodies, our professions and our own organisation proved challenging.
In June 2021 we launched 'Audit Scotland 2021: Shaping our future', a diverse and ambitious virtual programme of events and activities based around the three themes of our strategic improvement programme: our purpose, what we do, and how we work.
The aim was to engage with the different groups of people across Audit Scotland on topics relevant to their work, and create opportunities to bring everyone together to consider the external environment in which we operate. We also wanted to hear from individuals and organisations with experience of delivering and receiving public services in Scotland, in line with helping us make our work more people-centred. We also included activities based on professional development and personal wellbeing.
