Rupert Lowe said something in Parliament this week that no Treasury official could answer.
If a private sector businessman ran a company with accounts like this — he would end up in prison.
So why is the government held to a different standard?
The Department for Work and Pensions has had its accounts formally qualified by auditors for 37 consecutive years. Not once. Not twice. Thirty seven years in a row. And in that time not a single person has been held accountable.
But it gets worse.
Of 407 local authorities that were supposed to submit audited financial data to the Whole of Government Accounts — 167 submitted nothing at all. A further 224 submitted data that had never been audited. Only 16 local authorities — 4% — submitted data that was actually fit for purpose.
96% of local authorities in England are either submitting no financial data or data that auditors cannot stand behind.
Inside those accounts sit £125 billion in nuclear decommissioning costs. £58 billion in clinical negligence provisions. £25 billion in contingent liability.
Real obligations. Real taxpayer money. Tracked by accounts that have been unreliable for nearly four decades.
The Treasury official's response to Rupert Lowe? It's a good challenge.
A good challenge.
In the private sector accounts like these trigger investigations, regulatory action and prison sentences. In government they trigger a committee appearance once a year where officials talk about their aspirations for next year.
Rupert Lowe asked the question that needed asking. He did not get a satisfying answer.
He will not get one. Because the system that produces these accounts is the same system that has been failing to fix them for 37 years.
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