Improvement Service Competitors

The devolved government for Scotland is responsible for matters that are devolved from Westminster. Areas of responsibility include the economy, health, education, justice, rural affairs, environment, and transport.

The Local Government Association (LGA) is the national voice of local government. We work with councils to support, promote and improve local government. We are a politically-led, cross-party organisation that works on behalf of councils to ensure local government has a strong, credible voice with national government. We aim to influence and set the political agenda on the issues that matter to councils so they are able to deliver local solutions to national problems. We are a membership organisation. Our core membership comprises 331 of the 333 councils in England and includes district, county, metropolitan and unitary authorities along with London boroughs and the City of London Corporation. The 22 Welsh unitary councils are in membership via the Welsh Local Government Association. We also operate an Associate scheme for organisations whose purpose and objectives are aligned with our own. Our Associates include fire and rescue authorities, police, fire and crime commissioners/police and crime commissioners, national park authorities and town and parish councils via the National Association of Local Councils (NALC)’s corporate associate membership.

The National Audit Office (NAO) is the UK’s independent public spending watchdog. We support Parliament in holding government to account and we help improve public services through our high-quality audits. We scrutinise public spending for Parliament and are independent of government and the civil service. We help Parliament hold government to account and we use our insights to help people who manage and govern public bodies improve public services. The Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG), Gareth Davies, is an Officer of the House of Commons and leads the NAO. We audit the financial accounts of departments and other public bodies. We also examine and report on the value for money of how public money has been spent.