Agenda item

This report is to provide the Governance & Audit Committee with an update from the exit meeting with Audit Wales which reflected upon the 2020-21 Statement of Accounts audit process, and whether practices could be amended to benefit the 2021-22 Statement of Accounts process.

The report was presented by the Assistant Head of Finance who confirmed that the Statement of Accounts 2020/2021 were signed off in November 2021, but refinements were acknowledged and corrected. 

The changes made were reflected in the working papers which automatically go through into the 2021-22 process.

·       The focus on the Audit meeting looked at what went well and what could be improved, information sharing aspects and how the team could better meet the statutory audit timescales. Covid flexibilities made the accounts more difficult, but it was recognised that those flexibilities may soon not exist.

·       Auditors have time commitments for other audits and as a result of the Audit meeting there was a consideration by the local authority as to whether there was a look to prepare the accounts with auditor availability or to push to close with early time scales.

·       It was noted about the delay to reserves approval which was covid related. The Covid grant itself which was a lot of money involved around £30 million funding to be allocated to particular services.

·       It was noted this was a good audit process and it was good to be challenged to meet the May deadline and that it was sensible to work to statutory guidelines.

·       It was a small team but very resilient under pressures which was a risk the Council needed to appreciate.

Questions:

Councillor Hourahine stated that as it was a small team what availability was there in the whole finance system to allocate staff where they were most needed.

The Head of Finance noted that this was a very technical piece of work, and the Assistant Head of Finance stated a certain expertise was needed for certain things such as the presentation of a 160-page document following the international financial reporting standards.

The Assistant Head of Finance explained that certain closing jobs were shared out in the team but with a team of 4 that inherent challenge and capacity was present.

The Head of Finance confirmed that the entire accountancy team were all involved and there was a central team which brought it all together with the Assistant Head of Finance, alongside one capital accountant and a finance business partner. The work was very technical, and this level of knowledge was not available to everyone in accountancy. Everyone was involved in the end process. Resilience was a problem, and this was concerning but with resources that were there the team did the best they could.

The Chair agreed that this problem was everywhere and noted that it was good to have a Lessons Learned document which was great to have. The Chair agreed that it was necessary to go to the end of May deadline and it was correct to stick to this as there was less risk doing it that way.

Agreed:

The Governance and Audit Committee noted the report