The government’s accounting watchdog has refused to endorse the audited accounts of the College of Policing after serious failures in a project to replace its HR and accounting systems left the policing organisation unable to properly manage its finances.
The National Audit Office (NAO) found that the College of Policing, which promotes policing excellence across police forces in the UK, ran into problems when it “went live” with new accounting and payroll systems without resolving “known problems” with the project.
The College of Policing – which has a staff of 600 people, including officers on secondment – failed to properly manage the switch from its SAP-based accounting system to the Home Office’s Oracle-based Metis accounting system and a new payroll provider, the NAO reported this week.
Inaccurate information in the college’s financial systems following the switch led to an overspend of £1.3m against Home Office budget, the late and incomplete delivery of its annual report and statements to the NAO, and the failure of the college to meet the statutory deadline for filing accounts with Companies House.
The college did not have visibility or oversight of users who had access to Metis, creating a risk of unauthorised access to sensitive system data, potential data breaches and vulnerabilities.
The NAO’s comptroller and auditor general, Gareth Davies, this week “disclaimed” the watchdog’s audit opinion on its 2023-2024 financial statements after being unable to “obtain sufficient and appropriate evidence on which to form an opinion”.
By the time the NAO finished its audit work in February this year, the college had been unable to provide the NAO with the evidence required to substantiate 56% of the audit sample.
Metis project
The failures follow the College of Policing’s move to join the Home Office’s Metis project, which aims to move government back-office services to Oracle Cloud in a programme to cut costs and make it easier for government departments to share data.
The College of Policing moved existing SAP IT systems to the Home Office’s Oracle-based Metis cloud service in October 2023, and on the same day transferred its payroll systems from CGI UK IT Limited to a new supplier, Shared Services Connected Limited (SSCL).
However, according to the NAO, the college failed to check on a “line by line” basis that the transactions on the SAP systems had been accurately and completely transferred to Metis.
The College of Policing’s finance team was unable to produce accurate aggregate figures of financial transactions across its new and previous IT system.
By the end of the year, there were “significant concerns” about the integrity of the college’s financial records, which contributed to an overspend of £1.3m.
The problems were exacerbated by the lack of people with the right technical and financial skills. The college relied on a single member of staff – who took an extended leave of absence – for its knowledge of its SAP accounting system, and the board member overseeing the accounting team was not a qualified accountant.
“Providing assurance on the data migrated across the two systems was highly complex and time-consuming,” the College of Policing stated in its annual report. “The NAO’s IT audit specialists have also found there were significant governance and control weaknesses arising from the adoption of Metis itself, which affected the integrity of the college’s financial data.”
College unable to access data from supplier
The College of Policing revealed in its accounts that because Metis is an outsourced service shared with other government departments, it was unable to access a “significant amount of information” required for its 2023-24 financial audit.
NAO auditors discovered that the Home Office’s contract with SSCL did not require the service provider to hand the College of Policing the information it needed for the audit. That led to significant delays while the Home Office negotiated a “request for change” to the contract.
Auditors had to wait four months to be supplied with payroll data from SSCL, which was only delivered after the College of Policing made a formal request to the Home Office for support to expedite the process.
The situation was exacerbated by a lack of resources in the college’s small finance team, including vacancies in key posts, and a number of people being absent because of sickness during the audit period.
Davies said in his audit statement that managers at the College of Policing were unable to provide “appropriate evidence” to reach conclusions on the accuracy of transactions before they approved its financial statements for publication.
These included staff costs of £52.8m, where the payroll function had been outsourced to SSCL, expenditure of £32m, and reported cash and cash equivalents of £4m.
Changes to the finance team
Andy Marsh, College of Policing CEO, said in a statement he had made significant changes to the finance team, including an additional non-executive director and former audit partner to join the college board.
“In 2023, the college implemented a replacement public sector finance and HR system, which presented a range of challenges for us to accurately migrate data and introduce new procedures and processes while the changeover was happening,” he said. “Regrettably, it resulted in late accounts being filed and an overspend in budget.
“The new financial system has now been fully implemented and is working well,” said Marsh, adding that he could “reassure the public that our next accounts will be filed correctly”.
However, in its annual report, the college said it expects the opening balances of 2024-25 financial accounts to be subject to a qualified audit – in which an auditor expresses doubts about aspects of the financial statements – as they had not been verified.
It said it would work towards a fully unqualified audit opinion for its 2025-26 accounts.
Timeline of events
1 October 2023
College of Policing migrates from its SAP accounting system to the Oracle-based Metis accounting system used by the Home Office.
The college transfers most of its payroll functions to SSCL, a contractor used by the government. Payroll had previously been run by another contractor, CGI UK IT Limited.
The college fails to check on “a line-by-line basis” that all transactions in the SAP system had been accurately and complete transferred to Metis.
1 October 2023 to 31 March 2024
College of Policing finance staff cannot prepare accurate financial management information.
The college cannot produce accurate aggregate figures of transactions across its new and previous financial IT systems.
By the end of the financial year, there are significant concerns about the integrity of financial records.
The poor visibility of the college’s finances contributes to an end-of-year overspend of £1.3m.
November 2023
Payroll provider SSCL tells the College of Policing it cannot undertake an external audit of the college’s financial statements as this is not part of the list of services agreed by the Home Office.
24 November 2023
SCCL receives a formal “request for change” notice to allow an external audit.
April 2024
The Home Office is not able to rely on the college’s accounting records to prepare its consolidated financial statements for 2023-24.
It uses unaudited numbers from the college’s 2022-23 accounts as a proxy for the college’s 2023-24 accounts.
August 2024
Five months after the end of the financial year, the college is still processing adjustments to its 2023-24 financial position.
The college recruits contractors with knowledge of SAP and a head of finance in an attempt to fill gaps in its knowledge about how its former SAP finance system worked. It is only partially successful.
2 September 2024
College of Policing misses the deadline for filing accounts to the comptroller and auditor general at the NAO.
26 November 2024
College of Policing provides NAO with draft annual report and accounts that were missing key financial data.
January 2025
The Home Office seconds a qualified accountant to oversee the College of Policing’s finance department, which up until this point was overseen by someone without accounting qualifications.
February 2025
The College of Policing is unable to provide sufficient evidence to support 56% of sample queries tested by NAO auditor.
March 2025
College of Policing files VAT returns up to December 2024 after being unable to do so since 31 March 2024.
31 March 2025
College of Policing incurs financial penalties after failing to file its accounts with Companies House.
1 April 2025
The college appoints a finance and commercial director with accounting qualifications to run the finance team. Previously, the team had been run by someone without financial qualifications.
25 April 2025
The college provides NAO with complete annual report and financial statements.
May 2025
The college submits its VAT return for the quarter ending 31 March 2025.
July 2025
NAO “disclaims” the College of Policing’s 2023-24 accounts.
