The Audit Commission undertakes audits and inspections in relation to local government, housing, social services, education and the health service, and in effect presides over the local governance of welfare. It legitimates its work by reference to a peculiar fact-value nexus which has bewitched many proponents of welfare economics and evidence-based practice and bewildered many councillors and professionals, suggesting that the nexus itself needs to be dissected and deciphered. The focus of this article is on the Commission's work in the sphere of local government in general and social services in particular. A critical appraisal of 'facts' is undertaken in relation to costs, charges, outcomes and performances, whilst a critical appraisal of 'values' is undertaken in relation to economics, politics, ethics and evaluations. It is suggested that there are good reasons for being bewitched and bewildered by the work of the Audit Commission, since it combines quasi-scientific researches with socio-political reforms and operates in the name of both upward accountability to the government and downward accountability to the people, offering a synthesis of virtues and values which is simultaneously irresistible and impossible.