| 4 | For the purpose of this Practice Note, the following terms are defined: |
| An auditor of a public sector body (a public sector auditor) can be: |
| a person, or persons appointed under statute or agreement (such as the Comptroller and Auditor General); or |
| a person or persons appointed by, employed by or acting as the agent of a national audit agency, a secretary of state or a government department acting under statute or by agreement (such as a firm of auditors appointed by the Audit Commission); or |
| a person or persons appointed as auditor to a body regulated by an independent regulator which has determined that this Practice Note applies (such as Monitor, the independent regulator of NHS Foundation Trusts). |
| A national audit agency is one of the United Kingdom public audit agencies responsible for carrying out the audit of the financial statements of public sector bodies for a public sector auditor (the National Audit Office for the Comptroller and Auditor General, Wales Audit Office for the Auditor General for Wales, Audit Scotland for the Auditor General for Scotland and the Accounts Commission, and the Northern Ireland Audit Office for the Comptroller and Auditor General for Northern Ireland) or for the appointment and regulation of auditors of public sector bodies (the Accounts Commission, the Auditor General for Scotland, the Audit Commission and the Auditor General for Wales); |
| Parliament includes the United Kingdom Parliament and the Scottish Parliament, but not the National Assembly for Wales or the Northern Ireland Assembly. |
| The public sector1 comprises: |
| government departments and their executive agencies; |
| the Scottish Government, Welsh Assembly Government, the Northern Ireland Executive and their sponsored and associated bodies; |
| trading funds; |
| bodies not administered as government departments but which are subject to Ministerial and departmental control, for example non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs); |
| local authorities and other local government bodies (such as police and fire authorities); |
| National Health Service bodies, including: |
 | strategic health authorities, primary care trusts, NHS trusts, special health authorities and NHS Foundation Trusts in England; |
| local health boards and NHS trusts in Wales; |
| health boards and special health boards in Scotland; and |
| health boards, trusts and special agencies in Northern Ireland. |
| in Scotland, further education colleges and the water authority. |
| It does not include other public corporations or the nationalised industries. The first four parts of the definition can collectively be regarded as central government. |
| 1 There is more than one generally accepted definition of the public sector and the inclusion of any particular category of entities will depend on the purposes for which the definition is being applied. This is also the case with the definition of central government. Whilst the PN has been drafted specifically for the audit of bodies included within the definition of public sector detailed here, it may be applied more broadly, e.g. for limited companies audited by national audit agencies in accordance with the provisions of section 482 or 483 of the Companies Act 2006. |
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