There are certain traditions we do particularly well in the Tees Valley. Parmos. Transport announcements. Governance reviews. And, more than ever, asking the National Audit Office (NAO) to investigate what is happening with our public money before apparently putting the request back in a drawer and carrying on. Now Darlington’s Green councillors are having a go.
NAO motion
Green group leader Councillor Matthew Snedker has submitted a motion to Darlington Borough Council, seconded by fellow Green Councillor Bryony Holroyd, calling for the government to put in place the statutory arrangements necessary for the NAO to investigate public spending associated with the Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA), Teesside Freeport and South Tees Development Corporation (STDC). It will go before full council on 24 September.
The remarkable thing is not that somebody is asking for an NAO investigation. It is that, more than three years after the first calls were made, somebody still has to. Hello, Whitehall? Are you listening?
The investigation that never quite happens
In May 2023, then shadow levelling-up secretary Lisa Nandy wrote to the Comptroller and Auditor General asking for an NAO investigation into the STDC and the redevelopment of the former steelworks site.
Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen also wrote to the NAO asking for an exception which would allow it to investigate.
Then, in April 2024, the cross-party House of Commons Business and Trade Committee went further. It said the NAO “must” examine public spending connected with the Teesside Freeport, TVCA and STDC.
This was not a fringe campaign group shouting from the sidelines. It was a parliamentary select committee examining the performance of freeports and investment zones.
NAO willing and able
According to the Darlington motion, the NAO itself had already said it was “willing and able” to examine STDC and the redevelopment of the steelworks, provided the necessary statutory agreement was put in place.
So, the government watchdog was not refusing to come. The government just needed to open the door. Three years later, Snedker and Holroyd are effectively asking Whitehall to find the handle.
Councillor Holroyd PhD speaks
When asked about the proposed motion and Teesworks development, Holroyd said the money “SHOULD have gone to benefit the people of Teesside, one of the most deprived areas in the country”, but added, “It seems it hasn’t, leaving STDC, and therefore TVCA”, in what she described as a “fragile financial state”.
“We need to find out where it’s gone, how, whether any of that was criminal/corrupt or not, and if so, who was responsible for that,” she said.
Holroyd added that, ideally, any recoverable public money should be returned “so the redevelopment of the Teesworks site can continue”.
Meanwhile, back at the TVCA…
It might be easier to understand the government’s reluctance to commission another examination if the governance concerns surrounding the TVCA had quietly evaporated in the meantime. They have not.
In January 2024, the independent Tees Valley Review found no evidence of corruption or illegality, something TVCA has repeatedly highlighted.
But that was not the end of the report. The review also identified significant problems around governance and transparency and produced a lengthy set of recommendations.
By April 2025, the Government had gone further and issued the TVCA with a formal, albeit non-statutory, Best Value Notice (BVN).
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said it had concerns following the Tees Valley Review and the external auditor’s assessment of significant weaknesses in TVCA’s value-for-money arrangements.
BVN still in place
A BVN is not exactly a gold star for administrative excellence and more than a year later, it had still not gone away. In April 2026, the government confirmed that the notice remained in place pending a decision on next steps. We are still waiting on that too.
The TVCA has developed an Organisational Improvement Plan, established an Independent Advisory Board and says it is committed to meaningful and sustained improvement. Its May 2026 progress report recorded 69% overall completion across the programme, although progress varied substantially between themes.
The accounts haven’t exactly been helping
Which brings us to the accounts, where external auditor EY has provided some awkward background noise for anyone insisting that continued scrutiny of TVCA is merely political theatre.
EY previously reported difficulty obtaining the general ledger, repeated delays, poor responsiveness to audit enquiries and governance changes not being communicated promptly.
Matters deteriorated to the point where EY said it could make no further meaningful progress on the 2024/25 audit without greater cooperation from the TVCA. Its concerns were serious enough to be escalated to statutory recommendations in April 2025.
Accounts still not signed off
But the TVCA did eventually publish its draft 2024/25 accounts on time. EY’s initial review then found “many material issues”, including inconsistencies in the statements, and concluded that hitting the deadline had come at the expense of producing accounts of appropriate quality.
Fast forward to September 2026 and the tidy-up is still going. The TVCA has now had to restate its 2023/24 and 2024/25 accounts, going back as far as 2022/23 to correct the treatment of a complex SeAH-related arrangement. Around £55m was reclassified from usable to unusable reserves, with officers saying the revised figures give a “much truer reflection” of the authority’s financial position. The accounts are still not signed off.
Surprise, surprise
TVCA’s new finance leadership has also spoken of “real learning”, promising specialist advice and earlier engagement with EY on complex transactions so there are “no surprises” in future financial statements.
Three years into the governance saga, even the surprises apparently now require an improvement plan.
We have tried reviews
At this point, it is difficult to know what additional method of attracting Whitehall’s attention remains available.
There has been an independent review, an improvement plan, an Independent Advisory Board, a Best Value Notice, statutory recommendations from EY and a parliamentary committee explicitly calling for NAO scrutiny.
Apparently none of this has quite set off the relevant alarm in Westminster. Maybe the Tees Valley needs to try semaphore? A flare over Redcar? “PLEASE SEND NATIONAL AUDIT OFFICE” written in 40-foot letters on the beach at Saltburn?
Because the government itself has already decided that further assurance is required. The increasingly peculiar question is why the country’s actual public spending watchdog remains the one form of assurance nobody seems able to arrange.
Darlington enters the argument
Snedker and Holroyd’s motion would require Darlington’s council leader to write to the MHCLG asking it to establish the statutory arrangements necessary for a comprehensive, independent NAO investigation.
It would cover expenditure of public money associated with the Teesside Freeport, TVCA and STDC. The motion will also ask Darlington MP Lola McEvoy to support the call. Whether it passes will be decided by Darlington councillors, on a Labour-led council where Labour is the largest group but does not hold an outright majority.
Let them look
The motion’s arrival brings the same question back to the table. What exactly would be lost by letting the NAO look?
For all the political trench warfare surrounding Teesworks and the STDC, quelling these questions would make a difference.
The independent Tees Valley Review found no evidence of corruption or illegality. Any allegation of wrongdoing therefore remains just that unless supported by evidence.
But the reverse is also true. Unresolved questions have a cost. Businesses considering investing in the Tees Valley need confidence that the institutions handling public money, land and major development projects are governed transparently and competently.
A genuinely independent examination could expose serious problems or provide the reassurance needed to draw a line under years of controversy. Either way, certainty is better for investment than suspicion left to fester.
Just open the door
The TVCA is responsible for vast sums of public money and projects intended to shape the Tees Valley for generations.
The first calls for an NAO examination came in 2023. Three years later, Darlington councillors are still asking the government to make it possible. At some point this stops looking like a complicated constitutional obstacle and starts resembling Whitehall pretending not to hear the doorbell.
Ready and waiting
After years of arguments over transparency, governance and value for money, there must surely be very few lessons left on the curriculum.
The question is no longer why people keep asking for the NAO to look. It is what, precisely, the Tees Valley is expected to do to get somebody in government to notice.
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