The Auditor General has qualified his audit opinion of the Welsh Government’s accounts because of a pay-out made to the former Permanent Secretary.
Commenting, Welsh Conservative and Shadow Finance Minister Peter Fox MS said:
“It is troubling to see tens of thousands of pounds of public money get paid out for a former top civil servant but not one person or one piece of evidence is able to explain why.
“For the Welsh Government’s records to be qualified like this is highly irregular and poor record-keeping to this extent demonstrates a serious problem.
“Mark Drakeford’s government needs to explain itself urgently about how this came to happen as simply saying they can’t explain it isn’t good enough.
“Coming off the back of so-called informal meetings with lobbyists, this makes Labour’s working culture look as clear as mud.”
Adrian Crompton said there was “insufficient appropriate evidence to determine whether expenditure in the 2020-21 accounts relating to a payment to the former Permanent Secretary is correct and properly authorised”.
ENDS/
Notes to Editors: Welsh Government Consolidated Accounts 2020/21 available at https://senedd.wales/media/5mxednsz/gen-ld15294-e.pdf
