Issue - meetings

External Audit Reports 2007/08

Meeting: 26/03/2019 - Audit and Corporate Governance Committee (Item 5)

5 External Audit Progress Report - Audit of the Accounts for year ended 31 March 2018 pdf icon PDF 2 MB

Minutes:

Suresh Patel introduced this progress report on the status of the Audit of the 2017/18 accounts, which remained in progress. He listed the following areas where progress had been slower than anticipated:

·         Property, Plant and Equipment

·         Movement in Reserves Statement

·         Collection Fund

·         Debtors and Creditors

 

It was noted that the volume of audit queries had been a challenge for officers to deal with and this had resulted in delays to the audit.

 

Suresh Patel could not guarantee that External Audit would be in a position to sign off the accounts by the end of April.

 

It was noted that the extra work carried out by External Audit would inevitably increase their audit fee. It was estimate that these fees could be £60,000 to £80,000 more than expected.

 

The Executive Director stated that this was the third year that the Council had not managed to get the accounts signed off within the Government’s deadline and he acknowledged that this was not acceptable. He stated that a new full-time accountant was being employed to replace the part-time arrangements that were in place under shared services. The Committee thanked the Executive Director for his efforts and hoped that a structure could be put in place to avoid such a lengthy delay in the future. It was suggested that the Committee should set up a Task and Finish Group to help facilitate this. It was also suggested that members of the Committee should have received regular updates on continuous delays to signing off of the 2017/18 accounts.

 

Disappointment was expressed that the issues raised by External Audit in 2016/17 had not be resolved for the 2017/18 accounts. It was noted that the delay in signing off 2017/18 accounts would inevitably cause delays in the signing off of the 2018/19 accounts, as there was currently no starting balance for this year’s accounts.

 

The Committee NOTED the report.