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The Chief Accountant highlighted key updates from the report and advised that the Council is on track to meet the deadline for the draft accounts to be published.

Members raised concerns about delays in producing the underlying data from the Revenues and Benefits system. The officer explained that several year-end processes must be run on 1 April to generate the data position as at 31 March, retain it in the system for audit, and produce the reports used for the collection funds. When the reports were reviewed, officers identified imbalances and subsequently established that a system patch was required, which took some time to complete. The Revenues and Benefits team also received incorrect guidance on rerunning the year-end processes, which had to be repeated after the patch had been applied and the revised reports reviewed. The officer confirmed that Finance officers should have identified the reporting issues sooner, and the Chief Accountant would take forward a different approach for the following year. Members asked who oversaw the system supplier. Officers could not confirm this at the meeting but indicated that it was likely to fall within the Director of Finance’s area of responsibility. Members requested that Audit Committee members be notified by email if the 30 June deadline for publishing the draft Statement of Accounts 2025/26 was not expected to be met. Members also discussed whether an online meeting should be arranged in September with the Director of Finance to review the points raised, given that the next Audit Committee meeting was five months away, and agreed that a September meeting would be useful.

Members asked for clarification on the figures in the Comprehensive Income and Expenditure Statement. In response, the officer referred to the recent online training on the Statement of Accounts, which had been recorded and was available in MS Teams, and which covered the topic with examples. The officer explained that the Comprehensive Income and Expenditure Statement presented the accounting view of the year’s activity, complied with accounting standards, and was required to be produced by the Council in a prescribed statutory format. The officer also explained the Expenditure and Funding Analysis, which showed income and expenditure according to the Comprehensive Income and Expenditure Statement, adjustments between the funding and accounting bases, and the amount chargeable to the General Fund. The officer further explained that the significant differences between the 2024, 2025 and 2026 current assets figures in the appendix balance sheet were due to incomplete collection fund entries, and confirmed that these would not appear in the final Statement of Accounts.

Members noted the low attendance at the recent online training and asked whether future training dates should be confirmed with all Committee members in advance to maximise attendance. Members agreed that it would be helpful to discuss future training dates and confirm availability at Committee meetings, as they had not been aware of the dates. The Committee Officer noted that training dates were listed in the Audit Committee work programme and published with the agenda.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 14