Report of Maxine O'Mahony, Executive Director Strategy & Resources

Alison Chubbock, the Assistant Director of Finance & S151 Officer presented the Statement of Accounts for 2020-21.

This report followed on from the previous report and these accounts had been updated accordingly since the June meeting.

The External Auditor had already taken Members through the major changes that had been detailed on page 138 of the agenda pack at paragraph 1.2 of the report and the £182k addition.  Therefore, the Accounts had changed taking into account that £182k adjustment and the short-term debtor and creditor amounts had been reduced by the same value.  It did not change the net financial position of the Council it only had an affect on the balance sheet, the short-term debtor and creditor notes, the financial instrument notes and the cash flow.

The report also included the annual governance statement that had not been changed since the June meeting which had been approved by the Leader & Chief Executive.  The report also included the letter of representation to E&Y which could be seen on pages 249 to 255 of the agenda pack.

Due to the pension issues, the recommendation as it stood was unable to be approved and would have to be changed.  Recommendations 1 (b) and 1(c) could be approved but the wording that was being proposed for 1(a) would be amended as follows:

The Governance & Audit Committee approves the financial statements of the Council as presented, having taken account of the External Auditors report. The Chair of the Governance & Audit Committee is authorised to sign and date the financial statements, once the auditor has completed their outstanding procedures as described, on the basis no material audit differences are identified.

If those procedures identified any material audit difference, which would require adjustment to the financial statements, the Governance & Audit Committee would be notified and updated accordingly and a new motion to approve the revised financial statements made at the next available Governance & Audit Committee meeting.

Mr Plaskett had compared the two sets of Accounts and only found one error that he felt should be addressed on page 182 of the agenda pack under ‘other differences’ the total 8,717 should be 6,891. Also on page 233, under short-term creditors had been changed from 635 to 633 and asked if that was just a timing difference.

The Assistant Director of Finance thanked Mr Plaskett for his observations as he was indeed correct in respect of the typo on page 182 and on page 233 this had been adjusted following the audit of Breckland Bridge accounts.

Out of interest, on page 199 under short term investments, Councillor Birt had noticed that there was a great deal of long-range investments in other councils and wondered why this approach had been taken and how that had come about.  Members were informed that Breckland Council applied the security liquidity yield principle where the security was applied first, followed by the liquidity of this Council and then the yield rate – in other words, local government was very secure.

The Chairman stated  ...  view the full minutes text for item 60