Agenda item

To approve as a correct record, the minutes of the meeting of the Governance, Risk & Audit Committee held on 12 September 2023.

The minutes of the meeting held on 12^th September were approved as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

Cllr C Cushing referred to Minute no.21 and a previous request for the Director of Finance (DFR) to provide a timeline for the sign-off of outstanding annual accounts. The DFR replied that she would send out a summary of key dates. In terms of the broader position, she said that all local authorities were waiting for guidance from the Government as to whether they wanted maximum assurance which would require the external auditors to come into each authority and catch-up on the accounts. For the 2021/22 accounts the deadline for this would 31 March 2024 and for 2022/23 it would be 30 September 2024 and for 2023/2024 it would be either December 2024 or March 2025. Any work that was not completed by these dates would stop which could lead to an incomplete Audit opinion. She went onto say that the alternative, which was the preferred option of External Audit, was to do a ‘reset’ as at 2023/2024 and this would mean that they would start afresh for 2023/24 and would not complete the 2021/2022 and 2022/2023 audits. The DFR added that councils still had to produce annual accounts for their own purposes and to provide an opening balance for the following financial year. Auditors were still required to undertake an audit on ‘Value for Money’ for all years and also on pensions accounts. The latter would be at County Council level rather than District level. She said that the Finance Team were continuing to undertake work on the 2021/22 accounts and were ready to produce the statement soon. She said that she believed that the Council would have caught up by the end of March 2024.

The Chairman thanked the DFR for the update and said that the main decisions relating to this had to be taken elsewhere. In reality, it was unlikely that Councils would receive the assurance that was required and that why the proposal for a reset was generally supported.

The Chairman referred to Minute 25 and the recorded action that the Head of Internal Audit (HIA) would seek a written response on outstanding audit recommendations where no comments had been received. The HIA replied that in her report that she had included all the responses that were received at the time and if future she would try and ensure that officers provided a response.

The Chairman then asked for an update on the co-option of an Independent Member to the committee (Minute 27). The Monitoring Officer replied she was intending to commence the recruitment process in the New Year so they could join the committee from the start of the municipal year.

The Chairman then referred to Minute 28 and the resolution to request that the Corporate Leadership team (CLT) give consideration to the inclusion of an AI risk on the Corporate Risk Register. He asked for an update on this. The MO replied that AI fell within her remit as an information governance matter and said that she would chase it up.