Issue - meetings

Janet Dawson of EY presented this report on the external audit of the 2018/19 financial statement. She explained that four issues remained to be resolved with regard to property, plant and equipment, which could have a material impact on the Council’s financial statements and needed to be resolved before the audit could be concluded.

The Head of Finance apologised for the fact that the Council’s property had been misvalued. A formal valuation process was now in place. Unfortunately there was no project plan regarding the migration of data in 2018. In the future, any migration of data would have a clear plan, with testing. Any surplus assets would be subject to annual checks with reasons given when the value changes. The Head of Finance hoped that the meeting between the Principle Accountant and Mark Russell of EY would result in a good referencing system.

Janet Dawson explained that EY had not yet considered it necessary to issue a statutory recommendation for information from the Council under Section 24 Schedule 7 of the Local Accountability and Audit Act 2014, although that option remained. Janet Dawson reported that she had liaised with the Chief Executive on what could be done to improve communication between the Council and EY to ensure that requests for information were responded to promptly. In response to questioning she stated that EY had identified a lack of control regarding the migration of data. She did not consider it a significant enough issue to invoke special powers.

Councillor Mark Howell stated that no councillors, regardless of party, wanted to see the Council put into special measures. Janet Dawson explained that it was not within EY’s powers to put the Council in special measures.

Councillor Grenville Chamberlain, Chair of the Scrutiny and Overview Committee, asked for an estimate on the number of hours of work required by EY and the Council to complete their work on the 2018/19 accounts. Janet Dawson explained that this was not a straightforward question as it would depend on the responses to requests for information from the Council. The Head of Finance stated that he would need to liaise with the Interim Project Accountant to estimate how many hours were required to complete the Council’s work on these accounts. The Chair requested that this work was carried out by the end of the week and that the results be circulated to Committee members.

The Committee Noted the report.