On Monday 17 January 2022 the North Eastern Local group hosted the first meeting of the year titled 'Everything you ever wanted to know about modelling at the National Audit Office but were too afraid to ask' given by Laura Cole, head of modelling at the UK National Audit Office. The talk took place online with an attendance of 40.
Laura started off the talk by giving an overview of what the National Audit Office (NAO) is responsible for, including different government departments and other public bodies. This was followed by an overview of the various departments in the NAO and what each of those are responsible for. Laura then presented a case study of how modelling at the NAO is used to estimate the value of the Department for Education’s Student Loan books, specifically by using a k-nearest neighbours algorithm. For the remainder of the talk, Laura walked the audience through an example, fictitious, report that a client would receive after an audit, including the various ways that model sensitivities are tested. The model assurance products also includes all the files needed to reproduce the analysis by modellers and end with conclusions and recommendations.
The talk was following by some questions and answers.