Issue - meetings

The Head of Strategic Finance and Property introduced his covering report. He said that the External Auditor would follow his introduction to present their report, which would set out the final results of their delayed audit of the 2020/21 statement of accounts.

The Head of Strategic Finance and Property drew Members’ attention to the links provided within the summary paragraph of his report. These links took followers to the Minutes of the meetings of the Committee held on 5 April 2022 and 16 March 2023 where the Interim Audit Results Report 2020/21 and the Receipt of the External Auditor’s Audit Results Report 2020/21 where received.

The External Auditor sought to clarify some of the points within the Head of Strategic Finance and Property’s covering report.

The External Auditor referred to page 79 of the report and said that the protracted timeframe described was in part due to the communication method used between the Auditors and the Council’s Finance Team. She explained that the submission of papers was completed via a canvass portal, which was more secure than email and allowed multiple staff members to view documents, but which could cause users to have to load papers multiple times. She said that this was an issue which would be looked at and streamlined for next year.

The External Auditor said that the problems which related to the errors in the calculation of the net pension liability affected all the bodies within Hertfordshire. This resulted in the Actuary having to produce an updated ISA19 report, which has impacted all the audits in Hertfordshire.

The External Auditor said that to catch up, work for the 2021/22 audits started in January of this year, before the previous audit for 2020/21 had been concluded. She said that the target to complete work for 2021/22 was March 2023, but that requests for information from the Council had been understandably delayed due to the Council’s budget and other internal actions. She said work was now required to produce a clear timetable for completion, and she assured Members that the External Auditor was now working towards an estimated completion date of November 2023.

The Chairman thanked the External Auditor for her clarification, and asked Members if they had any questions.

Councillor Deering asked if the Council was reserving its position as the delay to the Audit was very significant and had consequences for the Council.

The Head of Strategic Finance and Property said that the Auditor had included additional fee analysis at Appendix B to their report. He said that the scale fees were set by the Public Sector Audit Appointments Limited (PSAA), and any additional fees would also be moderated by the PSAA.

Councillor Deering said that, as detailed in the report, the delays had caused the Council inconvenience, extra work and extra cost, and asked if the Council was therefore seeking reimbursement from the Auditors or if it was reserving its position. 

The Head of Strategic Finance and Property said that no such conversation regarding fees  ...  view the full minutes text for item 27