Mr. Graham Doyle:

NOAC is a body under the aegis of the Department. The LGAS is part of the Department but operates independently, so the funding etc. comes through the Department. The LGAS is purely an audit service. It carries out standard financial audits and value-for-money audits. It does so across the local government system and also in respect of one or two other bodies that have been assigned to it. NOAC has a different role, which is really about monitoring overall performance, outputs and standards within the local government sector. It looks at financial performance but it also looks at overall performance. It looks at a range of things like compliance with the spending code, for example. It looks at best practice across the local government system. One particular tool it uses now, which was referred to earlier, is the scrutiny report process.

The Comptroller and Auditor General mentioned that there were 17 of those. Each local authority goes through a two-stage process for going about that work and reporting on it. My colleague Ms Quinn has very strong knowledge of NOAC and-----