Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what mechanisms are in place to audit information provided to his Department by (a) regulatory bodies and (b) non-departmental public bodies.

All DCMS sponsored bodies are required to prepare their annual reports and accounts in accordance with their governing and other relevant legislation and the accounts directions given by this department and HMT PES papers as long as it does not supersede or affect compliance with their governing legislation.The ALB annual reports are audited and published on their own websites and on gov.uk. Similar to other government departments DCMS produces consolidated group accounts annually which includes all ALBs within its accounting boundary which are audited by the NAO. The most recent set of audited DCMS consolidated group accounts for 19-20 were published on gov.uk in December 2020. The DCMS Group audit for 20-21 is currently in progress and we expect to lay the accounts in parliament later in the year.