Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

In the university sector in particular, there has been an historical issue, in that the HEA required a format of financial reporting, and for those reports to be audited, that was not GATT compliant. Accrual accounting, which gives an overall view of the universities, has been in place since 2003, but effectively the universities had to produce what was a funding statement in an agreed consistent format and a set of GATT accounts.

Historically, the universities appointed their own auditors separately from my audit.

One of the difficulties that gave rise to was that there were effectively two audits run. They were not run in parallel, historically. We did not get the financial statements until the commercial auditors had completed the issue. Additionally, we take a broader view of issues around regularity and propriety which the commercial auditors would not have necessarily dealt with.

To the extent that we can, we try to rely on the work of the commercial auditors. We have to enter an agreement with them using what is called a "hold harmless" letter that we sign and we can then examine their papers, and we try, effectively, not to repeat the work.