Audit Scotland’s staff costs have risen by £500,000 (3%) in 2016/17 with its overall expenditure also increasing year-on-year, as the organisation aims to cut audit fees by 6.7% by 2018, according to its latest annual report
Audit Scotland, the public sector auditor in Scotland, spent £25.4m in 2016/17, up from £25.3m in 2015/16, which consisted of £16.3m in staff costs, £0.2m in IT investments and £0.6m in pension schemes.
Staff costs increased by £500,000 this year compared to last year’s figure of £15.8m, with Audit Scotland paying its staff £11.7m in salaries in 2016/17 up from £11.2m the previous year. This year has seen a cut in severance costs, including redundancy payments, from £346,000 in 2015/16 to £177,000.
This year £18.6m of income came from audit fee charges with an additional £7.6m provided by Scottish Parliament as funding.
Audit Scotland has developed a simpler system for determining audit fees to ensure that audited bodies, parliament and other stakeholders have assurance on the cost and quality. It is estimated that this new strategy will reduce average fees levels for the 2016/17 audits by 6.7%.
The body paid £5m in fees and expenses to extrnal firms for their audit work. These firms include Scott-Moncrieff, KPMG and Deloitte.
As part of the 2017/18 budget, Audit Scotland will see a reduction of 6.5% in gross expenditure compared to the 2016/17 budget.
In total the body audited 329 accounts, consisting of 209 in local government, 76 in central government, 23 for the NHS and 21 in further education.
Audit Scotland’s annual report for 2016/17 is available here.
