Delays to establishing the Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority (ARGA) and handing over responsibilities for leading local audit to the FRC, risk performance deteriorating further. The Department rejected the Redmond Review’s proposal to create an Office of Local Audit and Regulation to oversee local audit, partly due to the time it would take for a new body to establish itself. It instead opted to establish ARGA to replace the FRC and oversee and regulate the local audit sector. Despite the pressing need for leadership within local public audit and recognition of the importance to set up ARGA as soon as possible, ARGA will not be set up until 2024 at the earliest. Neither FRC nor the Department could confirm whether the legislation required to establish ARGA would be introduced in the current Parliament. While the Department and FRC have agreed what roles and responsibilities the FRC will take on as part of its shadow system leadership role until ARGA is formally in place, these arrangements are yet to be formally Timeliness of local auditor reporting 7 handed over. We welcome the National Audit Office’s offer to reissue the 2020 Code of Audit Practice to provide some continuity and certainty over local auditors’ responsibilities in the meantime. Recommendation 4: The Department should, as part of its Treasury Minute response, set out its contingency plans should the legislative programme not allow for ARGA’s establishment during this Parliament.