Agenda and minutes

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To agree any items to be dealt with after the public (including the Press) have been excluded. Thereare no itemswhich officersrecommendshould be dealtwithin thisway.

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The Director of Finance and Peter Barber from Grant Thornton presented the council’s Statement of Accounts for 2023/24 to the Committee for approval. Members were asked to note the letters of representation to Grant Thornton in respect of the financial statements for 2023/24. Members were informed there was a national issue with over half of Local Authorities having had their accounts backstopped. For transparency for the Committee a programme of events was being completed for Members to track future progess.

Discussion included the following:

·       Assurance that the council was covering the Plan and reaching deadlines set.

·       The setting of the Budgets and auditing of the Accounts happened at the same time – this was a problem especially with staffing resource.

·       To work with Grant Thornton to get the complicated accounts submitted earlier.

·       Work would start on auditing the draft accounts by mid-September.

·       Cannot always be assured of the staffing position, the key was resilience in the Finance team. Statutory Accounting was very specialised.

·       The need for planning earlier with all concerned working together for the 2024/25 audit of accounts.

·       Having a coordinator as one point of contact being tasked to chase up responses from managers.

·       Perhaps share working practises with other authorities who had more success with accounts delivery.

·       The possibility of contracting out certain elements to external companies.

·       The Committee could help the process with useful further debates and discussions.

In response to whether the Plan was presently in place, the Director of Finance stated a detailed timetable had been completed for the production of the Accounts but more emphasis on the backing papers required. The Finance team needed to be more proactive with the auditors with a managed approach and there were lessons learnt from this year’s audit for both the finance team and the audit team. The recruitment of a Principal Accountant was proving difficult. The Director and Finance and Grant Thornton stated their commitment to work together to get the auditing of accounts process working and progressing going forward. External Audit Progress would be a set item on future Audit and Governance Committee agendas.

Cllr Mike Goodman had submitted the following questions which the Chair asked be recorded in the minutes along with the subsequent officer answers.

Question 1:
We all understand that the back stopped is being put in place. What was not covered in the last audit meeting was confirmation that although in each of the last three years the external audit as not been completed. Can the audit committee have confirmation that there is no element of the external audit that has been not investigated at least once during the last three years. If this assurance is not available this does leave the Council at risk and what can be done to rectify this situation?

Answer:

There are many areas that have not been covered at least once during the last 3 years. For 2021/22 and 2022/23 no substantive audit work was undertaken and in 2023/24 whilst lots of work commenced, very little  ...  view the full minutes text for item 57.