This report provides an update since the last meeting in January 2019 on progress being made towards completing the audit.

Further to Minute 25 of the meeting held on 24 January 2019, Matt Davis, Assistant Director of Finance, submitted a report providing an update on progress with the audit of the 2016/17 and 2017/18 accounts.  The Committee noted that the 2016/17 Accounts should originally have been audited and signed off by 30 September 2017, and that regular reports had been made to the Committee since then providing updates on progress. 

The report stated that the revised accounts containing new valuations had been submitted to the External Auditors (EY) in the first week of March 2019.  This had been later than anticipated due to further issues with property valuations, in particular with the accounting treatment of historic Council Dwellings valuations.  Whilst significant work had been undertaken to provide suitable evidence to the external auditors so that they could form an opinion on the 2016/17 accounts, it had not been possible to provide sufficient evidence retrospectively to prove fully the debtor and creditor balances carried forward at the end of March 2017. As a consequence, EY had advised that the accounts would be qualified for both these balances and as a result the Comprehensive Income & Expenditure Statement would correspondingly also be qualified.  Specific additional work had been undertaken by staff to verify the closing 2017/18 debtor and creditor balances to ensure as far as possible this qualification did not continue into 2018/19.

The final set of accounts for 2016/17 had been sent to EY on 16 April 2019 and would be subject to their final checking procedures.  The accounts for 2017/18 would be handed to EY as soon as it was practical, once the 2016/17 accounts had been finalised.  The external auditors had advised that due to their commitments to other clients they would be unable to complete the audit of the 2017/18 accounts until later in the year.  It had therefore been agreed that the 2017/18 and 2018/19 audits would be run concurrently in the late summer.

Resolved:   

(1)     That the progress made by the External Auditor and officers in finalising the 2016/17 accounts be noted;

(2)     That the expected qualification to the accounts for 2016/17 be noted;

(3)     That, following consultation with the Section 151 officer, the Chairman of the Audit and Governance Committee be authorised to sign the final version of the 2016/17 accounts.