To report progress on the external audit of the council’s 2024/25 draft financial statements.

The Audit Manager (AM) Grant Thornton (GT) presented the report, the purpose of which was to report progress on the external audit of the council’s 2024/25 draft financial statements. The following principal points were noted.

·       Work had started earlier than planned.

·       Significant testing had started earlier in the year at planning stage.

·       Most samples had been issued; GT were awaiting officers to pull together evidence.

·       The audit was ahead of where they would expect it to be, and very much on track at that point to complete the audit by the end of September.

·       Significant risk areas that were identified during audit planning included management override of controls which is a standard significant risk across all audits, valuation of the Council's property, plant and equipment and the Council's investment properties, valuation of the pensions.

Councillor Stoddart, Cabinet Member Finance and Corporate Services issued his thanks to the Director of Finance and her team for publishing the draft statement of accounts a month in advance of the deadline and one of the first in the country, which has enabled GT to make an earlier start and in a good place to complete the audit by the end of September.

The Chief Accountantfelt the audit was progressing well, the finance team, were working hard to reply with evidence, samples and responses to queries. They were pleased to have received a site visit from GT which was felt to be beneficial on both sides and that they were looking to repeat another visit in August.

In response to committee questions, it was noted.

1.     The Senior Manager GT confirmed that they were not experiencing any resource squeezes due to the impact of devolution of district councils and that they were not seeing any movement for mergers in the regional area at the moment.

2.     The AM worked remotely from Glasgow with the auditor in charge based in India. It was hoped that pending visas the auditor in charge would travel to the UK for the month in August and join the rest of the team in another site visit to Herefordshire.  It was noted that the audit was completed fully remotely last year, and it did not cause any major problems.

The committee noted the report.