We’ve published a summary showing the level of unappropriated expenditure, and the reasons why expenditure was unappropriated, from 2015/16 to 2021/22.

Governments must not spend public money without Parliament’s authority. This authorisation is provided through an “appropriation” or other legal authority. Through the Controller function, we check that government departments have spent public money as authorised.

The number of instances of unappropriated expenditure has decreased. For both 2020/21 and 2021/22, the Government’s financial statements reported 12 cases of unappropriated expenditure, which is the lowest number this century.

Unappropriated expenditure averaged $155 million each year in six of the last seven years. Although large in amount, this was typically below 0.3% of the Government’s annual budget. The exception is 2019/20 (the first year of Covid-19) when unappropriated expenditure totalled $927 million, or 0.61% of the Government’s budget, mainly due to an administrative error.

Government departments can learn from past errors and reduce the amount, number, and frequency of unappropriated expenditure. We outline some of the ways that government departments can do this in the “Lessons learned” section.

Our report Observations from our central government audits: 2021/22 has a more detailed explanation on how public expenditure is authorised, who is responsible for managing it, and the Controller’s role. You can also watch this video to learn more about the Controller function.

You can read the full article on our website.

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