In 2020 the Department rejected the Redmond Review’s proposal to create an Office of Local Audit and Regulation (OLAR) to oversee local audit, partly due to the time it would take for a new body to establish itself.68 It chose instead to place system leadership with the Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority (ARGA), which was already being established as the replacement for the FRC. In our 2021 report we expressed concern that ARGA would not be set up until 2023. This date has since slipped to 2024 at the earliest.69 We challenged the Department on whether getting the required legislation in place to establish ARGA was being prioritised, given the urgent challenges the sector faces. The Department responded that responsibility for the legislation was with the Department for Business and Trade (which replaced the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy in February 2023). The Department conceded that progress depends on government securing the legislative time in Parliament. When we expressed our concern that the involvement of an entirely new department added to risk of delay, the Department was confident that it would not.70