A History of British National Audit:

David Dewar was educated Leith Academy , Edinburgh. He joined Exchequer and Audit Department (E&AD) in 1953, National Service 1953-55, and re-joined E&AD 1955. He was Chief Auditor in 1966: Deputy Director of Audit in 1973: Director of Audit in 1977: Deputy Secretary in E&AD 1981: Assistant Auditor General NAO in 1984-94. Previously, David served as member of the Auditing Practices Committee of the Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies; as member of the Public Sector Liaison Group of the Accounting Standards Committee; and as member of the Council of the Royal Institute of Public Administration. Warwick Funnel is Professor of Accounting and Public Sector Accountability at the University of Kent. His international reputation is based mainly on his public sector and accounting history research. He has published many academic papers in highly ranked journals and published several books across a diverse range of topics, but with the emphasis on the public sector. Books published include Government By Fiat (UNSW Press), Accounting by the First Public Company: The Pursuit of Supremacy (Routledge), Accounting at War (Routledge)

• 1: A Sense Of History 2: Medieval Beginnings 3: Advance And Retreat in the Financial Supremacy of Parliament 4: The Board of Audit 5: Early Victorian Reform 6: The 1866 Audit Act and the Modern State 7: Audit, Accountability and the Impact of the Two World Wars 8: Post War Strengths and Challenges 9: Audit In The Time of the New Public Management 10: The National Audit Office 11: Recurring Themes and Continuing Change Appendices

Together they have weaved an interesting account of the UK's long history of trying to hold officials to account for spending public money. Its publication is also very timely: the combined factors of austerity, localism, devolution and Brexit mean that we need better ways of ensuring financial sustainability and assuring value for money of our local public services. Overall, Dewar and Funnell do a nice job of outlining the move from medieval beginnings to Victorian reform and a modern state, which is followed by the impact of the world wars and post-war strengths and challenges, and bring us to the more contemporary period of New Public Management.