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Whitehall's auditors are unable to verify Foreign Office spending last year because of a breakdown in the main computer controlling the accounts. John Bourn, the Comptroller and Auditor General, has refused to approve the Foreign Office accounts, covering embassies, Nato, the United Nations, military aid, the BBC World Service, and the British Council, because the ministry cannot produce accurate evidence of the spending. At one stage auditors found discrepancies totalling 458 million pounds between the money granted to the Foreign Office and their own records. After extensive checking the auditors were left with 26 million pounds of imbalances in accounts for embassies, external relations, the BBC and the British Council. Ministers allocated 560 thousand pounds for the scheme, but ended up paying 937 thousand pounds employing a software company, Memory Computers, which failed to deliver on time and went into liquidation just after it did deliver.