Commentary on Sections Section 10: Consistency between Accounts and Audit of Health and Social Care Bodies
Consistency between the Audit and Accountability (Northern Ireland) Order 2003 and the Health and Social Care (Reform) Act (Northern Ireland) 2009 is required to allow the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) to carry out data matching exercises for the purposes of assisting in the prevention and detection of fraud. Since the Audit and Accountability Order has not been updated to refer to the restructured health and social care bodies, an amendment to Article 4D (6)(b)(i) of the Audit and Accountability (Northern Ireland) Act 2003 is required to correspond to the references in the Health and Social Care (Reform) Act (Northern Ireland) 2009, which will maintain consistency with the definition of a ‘relevant NHS body’ (for the purposes of data matching) in the other jurisdictions of the United Kingdom.