The National Audit Office was 'refused' access by Goldman Sachs to the advisory work it did for HM Treasury during the taxpayers' bail-out of Northern Rock, the public accounts committee has revealed in a report published today. 'Goldman Sachs refused the National Audit Office access to the financial modelling underpinning its analyses for the Treasury, even though this work had been paid for by the taxpayer,' the committee said. It added that it was 'wholly unacceptable' that the Treasury signed a deal with an adviser that didn't grant access for auditors to the financial modelling underpinning decisions made about Northern Rock and its rescue. The House of Commons committee has said that the Treasury was 'stretched' to deal with a crisis such as the collapse of the bank, which was nationalised in 2008, and so made use of external advisers including US bank Goldman Sachs. 'Very few people within the Treasury had the relevant skills to deal with the crisis at Northern Rock and it made extensive use of external advisers,' the committee said. The committee also said that the Treasury did 'not know enough about what it was taking on' and this carried huge risks for the taxpayer. The report also wanted the structure of entering talks with the Financial Services Authority to be reviewed, stating it to be 'wholly anomalous' that the auditor had to wait for an invitation from the financial regulator before being able to look at its work, when 'billions of taxpayers' money' is at stake. The Treasury said: 'Both the public accounts committee and the National Audit Office have found that we took the right decision to protect depositors and taxpayers, and put the bank on a sound and proper footing. The consequences of not taking this action would have been devastating, not just for savers but for the wider financial system and the economy as a whole.' Goldman Sachs declined to comment on the report.