Issue - meetings

To receive a joint report of the Chief Executive and Head of Accountancy 

Corporate Governance Committee APPROVED the draft Statement of Accounts.

The Chief Finance Officer presented the draft Statement of Accounts for the year to the end of March 2008, thanking the accountancy team for their work and the Committee for allowing the team time to complete that work.  The Draft Statement of Accounts was issued subject to audit, which was due to start on 21st July 2008.

The Accounts and Audit Regulations 2003 required the Draft Statement of Accounts for 2007/08 to be approved by the 30th June 2008.  The Member’s role in approval was to demonstrate their ownership of the accounting statements and their confidence in the Responsible Finance Officer, and in the processes by which he or she maintained the accounting records and prepared the statement.  However, to maintain the Council’s score of level 3 on financial reporting in the Use of Resources assessment, there needed to be evidence that the accounts were subject to robust member scrutiny prior to approval.  At its meeting in March 2008, Council had resolved that the terms of reference of the Audit Panel (now known as the Corporate Governance Committee) be extended to incorporate approval of the Statement of Accounts.

Corrections to the Statement

The Head of Accountancy drew members’ attention:

i)                    to a typographical error at the foot of page 49 of the Statement.  51,943 should have read 51,843 and

ii)                  to a typographical error at the foot of page 49 of the Statement.  631,534 should have read 631,634 and

iii)                 to Note 26, page 51, ‘Analysis of net assets employed’, which he stated required an adjustment to the previous year’s figures to enable comparison.

Members questioned the Chief Finance Officer in his role as the Responsible Section 151 Officer on the Statement of Accounts.  He was supported by, and further explanation of the statement was given by the Head of Accountancy.

Under-Spends

Councillor JD Batchelor expressed concern at various apparent under-spends and wondered if there were weaknesses in the accounting process that prevented these being noticed earlier.  The Chief Finance Officer assured the committee that the majority of under-spends were slippage and did not reveal any lack of desire to support services.

Council Tax

The Chief Finance Officer commented that the collection figure was a very high result.  Agreeing with those comments Councillor RT Summerfield asked if cost of collection budget required trimming.

Investments

Councillor FWM Burkitt commented on recent problems within the national economy and asked if those problems were causing modification to the investment strategy of the authority. The Chief Finance Officer replied that concerns had resulted in close monitoring of the situation and regular discussions with the Portfolio Holder on formulating a risk-averse strategy.

‘Not Material’

Councillor TJ Wotherspoon asked for an explanation of ‘not material’ as used to describe certain amounts within the accounts.  The Head of Accountancy explained that there was no fixed sum associated with the term, and it was only used so as a lay reader of the statement could not be mislead.

Loss on the Sale of Fixed Assets

Councillor NCF Bolitho  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10

The Corporate Governance Committee APPROVED the Annual Governance Statement. 

The Chairman invited the new committee to review the Annual Governance Statement as published within the Statement of Accounts.

Councillor JD Batchelor questioned the purpose, efficacy, and veracity of the Statement, adding that he could quite happily ‘sign-up’ to the process, but found difficulty in accepting the detail of supposed successes.

The Council’s internal and external auditors expressed their satisfaction with the Statement.  The external auditors explained that governance covered more than finance, and was about whole performance, making the scope of the Statement wider than previous, adding that any factual inaccuracies would be picked up at audit.

The Corporate Governance Committee APPROVED the Annual Governance Statement.  Councillor JD Batchelor in dissent.

A statement of accounts for the financial year ending 13st March 2008 (subject to audit) is attached.

The Corporate Governance Committee APPROVED the draft Annual Governance Statement (AGS), and NOTED that the final AGS might have to be updated to take account of any relevant significant events which might take place between now and the date on which the AGS is signed by the Chief Executive and the Leader.

The new Annual Governance Statement (AGS) subsumed and expanded upon the previous (annual) Statement of Internal Control, encompassing the full range of the Council’s governance framework rather than just financial controls, and would be included in the statement of accounts.  The AGS demonstrated how the Council performed against the six identified governance principles; it was acknowledged that there was some overlap, which was to be expected.

As this was the first AGS, actions and processes which had been applied in maintaining and reviewing the effectiveness of the governance framework over the past year had been measured, including the role of the Corporate Governance Committee and other regulatory committees, comments from internal and external audit and the Audit Commission, and the Council’s assurance framework.  Four significant governance issues had been identified and an action plan developed; external audit commended the Council for its excellent strategic focus on high-level key areas, as many other authorities struggled with inclusion of too many minor issues.

The committee asked that the sentence about the segregation of duties, which previously had been a specific reference to the payroll service in statements of internal control but was no longer a significant area of concern, be removed from the list of Internal Audit Opinions and inserted under the Review of Effectiveness.  The Principal Solicitor invited the committee to keep the AGS under regular review.  Executive Management Team would be receiving the AGS to take on senior level officer ownership of the actions.

The Corporate Governance Committee APPROVED the draft Annual Governance Statement (AGS), and NOTED that the final AGS might have to be updated to take account of any relevant significant events which might take place between now and the date on which the AGS is signed by the Chief Executive and the Leader.