Agenda item

Jennifer Norman, Audit Manager at Mazars External Auditors, was present to answer any questions that the Members may have had.

Members asked why the fees had doubled?  Jennifer reported that the fees were set by the Public Sector Audit Appointments (PSAA) and that they had no input into them and that they didn’t actually receive all of the fee, even the fee adjustments was also set by PSAA, with the exception of the IT system implementation which was new this year.

The Finance Manager reported that over the last couple of years there had been a big focus on audit reform because the local government audit system was broken, so some authorities were three or four years behind in their audits, so more money was put into it to bring everything in line.  There has also been a lack of auditors, so the only answer was to spend money and fix the problem, but hopefully the fees will then be looked at and may start coming down rather than up, but there is another 10% increase planned for this year, so is very costly to the Authority.

Members asked why they were being asked to approve the annual report from March 2023? Jennifer reported that it was because it was issued at the same time as the audit opinion was signed for the previous year, which was last year, but because of timings it had not had an Authority date where it could be presented to Members, but the 23/24 report now supersedes it, so it is a formality that it is presented.

Members thanked the Officer and External Auditor for the report, but there was some concern on the number of reports submitted, and it would be helpful in future to have an explanation or context in the covering reports on how they all related to each other. The Finance Manager agreed that this would be done.

The recommendations as set out in the report was moved, seconded, voted on and carried.

RESOLVED:

1.    To approve the audited Statement of Accounts for 2023/24 at Appendix 1 of the report.

2.    To consider and note the External Auditor’s Audit Completion Report (ACR) 2023/24 at Appendix 2 of the report.

3.    To consider and note the External Audit Annual report (AAR) 2023/24 at  Appendix 3 of the report.

4.    To consider and note the External Audit Annual report (AAR) 2022/23 at Appendix 4 of the report.

5.    To note that the Statement of Accounts & associated Letter of representation,  needs to be signed by the Chair and by the Chief Finance Officer, once the external audit has been completed, provided that the overall opinion in the audit report remains unqualified.