Agenda item

Report of the Corporate Director Resources (Section 151 Officer).

The Corporate Director Resources (S151 Officer) submitted a report to the committee to approve the council’s published Statement of Accounts and the final capital and revenue position for the financial year 2021/22.

The Corporate Director Resources attended the meeting virtually, gave apologies on behalf of the Head of Finance, and explained that they were both adhering to Covid-19 isolation guidance owing to symptoms. Rather than go through the detailed question and answer session on the Statement of Accounts at this meeting, she proposed that she would circulate the document to the committee the following week, so they could review this, with additional comments from herself on points she believed needed to be brought to the committee’s attention. This would give the committee the opportunity to thoroughly review the document and the Statement of Accounts, and at the next proposed meeting on November 15 2022, there would be a quick overview and the formal sign-off of the draft Statement of Accounts.

She assured members that there was no great urgency in getting the draft signed off, as the audit had not yet started, and they could afford to defer the vote to the next meeting.

Councillor Moon asked the Chair about ensuring that there was sufficient scrutiny and questioning of the Statement of Accounts. The Chair responded that she thought having the time in-between this meeting and the next meeting would be more useful, as well as the question and answer document supplied by the Corporate Director, rather than going through it all in one meeting.

The Chair asked a question to the Corporate Director and the external auditor from Deloitte on updates on the timing of the audit.

The Corporate Director said she knew meetings were ongoing, but that the issue on the infrastructure assets which had been mentioned in the meeting of the 14 June 2022 had still not been resolved by CIPFA.

Stuart Kenny, the external auditor from Deloitte, told the committee that the 2020/21 accounts were still waiting to be signed off owing to the infrastructure assets issue. They were waiting for the Department for Levelling Up to issue a draft statutory instrument to resolve these issues, though it was still to be seen whether this would completely resolve the issue. In terms of 2021/22, the infrastructure assets would still have an impact on this, and would likely mean changes to the draft statement of accounts, but at the moment these changes were not clear. In terms of the actual audit, they were still discussing the timescale for it.

The Chair asked a follow up question as to whether the deadline for the 2020/21 accounts would still be March 2023.

Mr Kenny responded that if the infrastructure asset issue could be resolved in time, then the deadline would remain for both sets of accounts as March 2023.

The committee agreed to defer the discussion and agreement on the draft Statement of Accounts to the next meeting.