This report provides an update on the process for concluding the Council’s 2020/21 and 2021/22 Statements of Accounts and recommends to Council that the final arrangements for approval be delegated to the Director of Finance.

The Committee received a report on the process for concluding the Council’s 2020/21 and 2021/22 Statements of Accountsand sought to recommend that Council delegated the final arrangements for their approval to the Director of Finance.  In doing so it should be noted that the accounts for these years would not be audited as they would have been in the past, and that this was part of the Government’s agreed approach to enable the local government audit sector to recover from a significant national backlog in audit opinions.  The auditor’s responsibilities to produce Value for Money (VFM) assessments for each year was still retained, and there was a level of independent assurance that could be obtained from that process.  VFM reports for each year would be reported to the Committee in due course.  It was further noted that the Draft 2023/24 Statement of Accounts had already been published and the Council’s new auditors KPMG would be undertaking to audit the ‘in year’ transactions and begin to deal with the impact of having unaudited opening balances from the previous year, 2022/23.

Resolved:      

(1)        Thatthe process for concluding the Council’s 2020/21 and 2021/22 Statements of Accounts be noted;

(2)        That Council be recommended to give delegated authority to the Director of Finance to finalise and approve the 2021/22 and 2022/23 Statement of Accounts.