Throughout the course of the 2019–20 accounts preparation process, the Treasury repeatedly underestimated how long it would take to produce the WGA; missing both 11 Public Accounts Committee, Report of session: Whole of Government Accounts 2018–19, 22 January 2021 12 HM Treasury, The Whole of Government Accounts (Specified Dates) Order 2010, 2010 No. 570, 31 March 2010 13 WGA 2019–20, para 9, p 211 14 WGA 2019–20, title page 3 15 HM Treasury, Whole of Government Accounts: year ended 31 March 2019, HC 500, July 2020 16 Public Accounts Committee, Oral evidence: Whole of Government Accounts, HC 31, 8 June 2022, Q 5 17 Q 12 18 WGA 2019–20, para 14, p 212 Whole of Government Accounts 2019–20 11 statutory deadlines and routinely missing self-set delivery milestones.19 In November 2020 the Treasury told the Committee that the accounts would be published in June 2021.20 However, by January 2021 the Treasury was no longer in a position to meet the 28 February statutory deadline for providing the draft accounts to the C&AG, and by July 2021 it communicated to us that it would also not be able to meet the 31 December deadline for laying the accounts. Altogether the Treasury wrote to us four times about successive delays to the delivery schedule with the most recent of these updates giving April 2022 as the target for publication.21 22 23 24 The 2019–20 WGA was eventually published on 6 June