The ten-storey clock tower of a handsome art deco building is visible from either end of Buckingham Palace Road, just south of London’s Victoria station. Built in 1939 as the Empire Terminal for the British Overseas Airways Corporation, the tower’s slim grey fuselage is flanked by two sweeping wings; from here passengers checked in their bags and were taken by train to the airfields and flying boats. The travellers of that glamorous age of air travel are long gone. But the building still exudes a certain calm authority: it is now home to the National Audit Office (NAO), the body that scrutinises public spending. The NAO may not be a household name but the reports it produces often become headlines: it is here that the cost of expensive and often controversial policies such as the Covid response, the Rwanda deportation plan and HS2 are calculated.
The NAO’s auditors are not civil servants. They serve parliament, giving MPs of all parties the numbers they need to make good policy and hold bad policy to account. At its head is Gareth Davies. The position of chief bean-counter has existed for many centuries – the first known mention of an auditor of the Exchequer is from 1314 – and Davies’ full title (Comptroller General of the Receipt and Issue of Her Majesty’s Exchequer and Auditor General of Public Accounts) is of Victorian provenance. The position is appointed by the monarch, and Davies could only be removed by a humble address to His Majesty from both the Commons and the Lords.
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