Issue - meetings

The Finance Officer submitted a report on the Statement of Accounts for 2018/19, the ‘Letter of Representation’ and the External Auditor’s ‘Report to those Charged with Governance’. 

The audited Statement of Accounts was attached to the report at Annexe 1 and included the Movement in Reserves Statement, the Comprehensive Income and Expenditure Statement, the Balance Sheet, the Cash Flow Statement, the Housing Revenue Account, the Collection Fund, the Disclosure Notices and the Annual Governance Statement.

The Council’s external auditors were required to obtain written representations from management in respect of fraud, compliance with laws and regulations, contingent liabilities, related party disclosure and post balance sheet events in the form of a letter of representation. The letter was attached to the report at Annexe 3.

The external auditor was required to ‘communicate audit matters to those charged with governance’, i.e. the Standards and Audit Committee, and a copy of the external auditor’s report was attached to the report at Annexe 2.  Mr Michael Norman of Mazars attended the meeting to present the External Auditor’s ‘Report to those Charged with Governance’.

The report confirmed that following the audit of the accounts a small number of presentational adjustments had been agreed but that these were not considered to be material. The external auditor noted that there had been two significant accounting policy changes internally but there were no significant control deficiencies and no significant new risks.

* RESOLVED –

1.   That the Statement of Accounts for 2018/19 be approved.

2.   That the Management Letter of Representation be approved by the committee.

3.   That the Report to those Charged with Governance be noted.

4.   That a note of thanks be sent on behalf of the Chair and Committee to all persons involved in the production of the Statement of Accounts and its supporting documents.