Decision details

The Finance Specialist (Deputy Section 151 Officer) introduced the unaudited Statement of Accounts and Annual Governance Statement 2021/22. The unaudited statements had been approved by the Finance Lead Specialist (Section 151 Officer) on 5 July 2022 and had been opened up to scrutiny and comment from the public between 8 July and 22 August 2022. The 2021/22 accounts had the deadline of no later than 30 November, or as soon as reasonably practicable after the receipt of the auditors final report (if later than 30 November) to be approved by Members and published.

The Finance Specialist (Deputy Section 151 Officer) informed Members that the Annual Governance Statement was published in the same document as the Statement of Accounts and provided important context to the financial information as it set out how internal control had been exercised during the accounting period. A self-assessment of actions against the Local Code of Governance had been carried out and the AGS action plan was updated where the self-assessment had identified potential areas of improvement, both against the Local Code of Governance and the CIPFA Financial Management Code.

It was anticipated that the final statements would be brought back to the September 2022 meeting of the Audit Committee, with the Value for Money assessment being finalised later in the financial year.

The Legal, Governance and Democracy Specialist (Deputy Monitoring Officer) noted that an update to the wording in the first recommendation was required – the Committee would be asked to approve (rather than note) the unaudited statement of Accounts for 2021/22.

In response to a query regarding public engagement on the Statement of Accounts, the Finance Specialist (Deputy Section 151 Officer) noted that there was little feedback from the public on this matter. The Finance Lead Specialist (Section 151 Officer) added that this had varied over the years and that due to many of the queries being dealt with by Freedom of Information requests during the year and being lowered by the fact that a lot of information had been published on the Council’s website.

RESOLVED – That

(1)        the unaudited Statement of Accounts for 2021/22 (including the Annual Governance Statement) be approved and the Annual Governance Statement Action Plan be noted; and

(2)        the response to the auditor risk assessment set out in Appendices 3 and 4 to the report be confirmed by management as a true reflection of the Council’s management processes.