The External Auditor will present Document “J” which summarises the findings from the audit of the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council for the year ended 31 March 2019.

Recommended-

That the Committee is asked to:

·         note the contents of the Audit Completion Report prior to approving the Statement of Accounts including consideration of the summary of misstatements at Section 4; and

·         approve the letter of representations requested at Appendix A.

(Mark Dalton –  0113 387 8735)

The External Auditor will present Document “J” which summarised the findings from the audit of the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council for the year ended 31 March 2019.

It was reported that subject to the satisfactory completion of the outstanding work which was almost complete and areas of work completed to date, External Audit had the following conclusion:

• Anticipated issuing an unqualified opinion, without modification, on the financial statements.
• Anticipated concluding that the Council had proper arrangements in place to secure economy, efficiency and effectiveness in its use of resources, except for the areas assessed as inadequate by Ofsted in their report on children’s social care services in October 2018.
• Anticipated completing the work on Whole of Government Accounts submission, in line with the group instructions issued by the National Audit Office, by the deadline of 13 September 2019.  External Audit anticipated reporting that the Whole of Government Accounts submission was consistent with the audited financial statements.
• The 2014 Act required External Audit to give an elector, or any representative of the elector, the opportunity to question on the accounting records of the Council and to consider any objections made to the accounts. No objections had been received in respect of the 2018/19 statement of accounts.

Members were provided with an update on the matters outstanding in the report which included:

• In completing the work on Property, Plant and Equipment (including Investment Property) the following matters had been identified and had been adjusted for by management: the revaluation of 3 secondary schools was based on building indices as at 1 April 2018 rather than 31 March 2019.  This required an amendment of £2.302m to the in year land and building revaluation figure and the revaluation reserve; the valuation movement for 4 swimming pool buildings had correctly included the revalued amount for land and as such the land element had been double counted, resulting in assets being overstated by £1,039K; there were no other matters in relation to this to bring to Members attention.
• Pensions work had been completed and there were no matters to bring to Members attention.
• Work had been completed on the physical verification/existence testing of a sample of heritage assets and there were no matters to bring to Members attention.
• Work on cash and cash equivalents had been completed and there were no matters to bring to Members attention.
• Work had been completed on expenditure and remuneration disclosures had been completed and there were no matters to bring to Members attention.
• Work had been completed on non material notes to the financial statements and there were no matters to bring to Members attention.
• Work on the Council’s Whole Government Accounts remained in progress, as reported in the Audit Completion Report. External Audit anticipated completing the work by the National Audit’s Deadline of 13 September 2019.
• The final versions of the Annual Government Statement and amended financial statements had been completed and there were no matters to bring to Members attention.
• Final post balance sheet events review had been completed and there were no matters to bring to Members attention.
• Final review and closure procedures had been completed and management had made a small number of presentational changes. None of these changes required specific mention.

Members were informed that further to the above, an additional matter had been raised with management in relation to the Collection Fund reconciliations between the ledger and the Council Tax and Non Domestic Rates system where outstanding reconciliation differences had been identified.  Whilst these differences were trivial in nature, External Audit were content that they did not mask more significant differences, management were encouraged to clear any such reconciliation differences going forward.

Resolved-

That the Committee:

·         noted the contents of the Audit Completion Report prior to approving the Statement of Accounts including consideration of the summary of misstatements at Section 4; and

·         approved the letter of representations requested at Appendix A.

Action:           External Audit