Issue - meetings

This report presents the 2023/24 Statement of Accounts, Grant Thornton’s Audit Findings Report, letter of representation and the Auditor’s Annual Report following the external audit.

The Committee received a report presenting the 2023/24 Statement of Accounts, Grant Thornton’s Audit Findings Report, letter of representation and the Auditor’s Annual Report following the External Audit.

Councillor Kate Chinn provided a verbal statement to the Committee.

The following matters were considered:

a)            Thanks. The Director of Corporate Services (S151) expressed their thanks to the finance team and congratulations on all their hard work.

b)            Governance and Transparency. A Member of the Committeeraised that the external audit report appears broadly favourable and that is a credit to the officers who contributed. The Member highlighted that the one area of concern regarding governance and transparency and explained that from their experience this pertains to culture and not performance of the Council. The Member invited officers to comment on the area and the future given impending Local Government Reorganisation. The Chair noted the comment and suggested a response could be provided to Committee Members following the meeting.

c)            Subsidiary Company. A Member of the Committee raised that item IR 6 on page 25, talks about the activities of the Council’s subsidiary company, and if it should ever expand, for example, through the acquisition of more properties, recruiting independent board members is something the Council should consider. The Member highlighted that the management action stated that there is no current intention to expand the activity of the Council’s subsidiary company, and if it were to happen, consideration would be given to review the current board and the appointment of independent members. The Member stated that the Council has declared its option to borrow further and expressed this might mean spending a lot more money on property, which would likely impact EEPIC, therefore, will the Council be appointing an independent member to the board as recommended in the report. The Director of Corporate Services (S151) informed the Committee that the recommendation has been taken on board and explained the 25/26 budget talks about agreeing the Council’s borrowing limits, as opposed to actually taking out the borrowing. The Member stated that by raising the borrowing limits, it is indicating that the Council intends to spend the additional borrowing the Council could be afforded. The Director of Corporate Services (S151) agreed that if the borrowing was to actually take place, there would be a move to put in the capacity described. The Chief Accountant explained that there was no change in the proposed borrowing limit compared with previous years, therefore limits were not being raise. If the Council were to borrow the money, it would have no impact on EEPIC as the potential borrowing is for the Council-owned property, not EEPIC-owned, therefore EEPIC would remain with the same assets as currently.

d)            Management Response. A Member of the Committee raised concerns regarding the management response on page 90 of the appendix 2 report. The Member expressed dissatisfaction with the response from the Strategic Leadership Team and explained that they did not have a positive experience with transparency at the Council. The Chair noted the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 46