How much funding will be allocated for the National Audit Office for 2006–07.

Following recent consideration of the National Audit Office's corporate plan for 2006–07 to 2008–09, the Public Accounts Commission endorsed the NAO's request for £69.9 million for 2006–07. The NAO will use those resources in support of parliamentary scrutiny of Government programmes through the financial audit of about 500 central Departments, the production of 60 major reports across public expenditure programmes and the provision of advice and support for the Public Accounts Committee and for other Select Committees. The Commission will formally approve the funding for 2006–07 when it considers the office's estimate in February 2006.

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that reply and for the announcement of the increase of £4 million. As Members are aware, for every pound in costs to the NAO there is a saving of £8, and last year, more than £500 million was saved. Does he agree that a little more money would increase the savings greatly?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for what I think were congratulations to the NAO, and I encourage him by saying that as a result of a recent request by the Commission, the NAO has looked at the possibility of increasing the rate of return to the taxpayer from £8 for every pound to £9 for every pound and is hopeful that it will be able to achieve that in 2007, which will mean an extra saving of £70 million a year.

The National Audit Office does an extremely good job of audit, but can the right hon. Gentleman tell us what proportion of the expenditure is set aside for precautionary work? If I may give an example: the Government have proved themselves wholly inept in their lamentable performance in IT procurement over the years, with many programmes going over budget and many simply not working. Has the NAO been brought into the IT strategy recently released by the Cabinet Office, for instance, and will it do better in future?

The NAO has made constant recommendations in relation to Government IT projects, and has experienced considerable frustration—as has the Public Accounts Committee—at the constant failure of some Departments to recognise the recommendations, but they, like me, live in hope.