This meeting was about approving the 2020/21 and 2021/22 Statement of Accounts, receiving an update on the 2022/23 accounts and discussing the forward work plan for 2025/26.

This summary is based on the documents that were provided to the attendees for the meeting, and does not record what was actually discussed or decided during the meeting.

Statement of Accounts

Wiltshire Council faced significant issues in producing its Statement of Accounts for 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23. This resulted in a backlog of accounts, for which the government set a backstop date of 13 December 2024 for them to be completed. Draft accounts were published for 2020/21 and 2021/22, but not 2022/23, and it was expected that the external auditors, Deloitte, would be issuing a 'disclaimer of opinion' for both 2020/21 and 2021/22.

A report from the Interim Corporate Director of Resources and S151 Officer¹, Lizzie Watkin, asked the committee to:

• Delegate to her, in consultation with the committee Chair, approval of the Letters of Representation for the 2020/21 and 2021/22 financial years.
• Delegate to her, in consultation with the committee Chair, approval of the Statement of Accounts for 2020/21 and 2021/22.

The Annual Governance Statement for 2020/21 originally said:

The Council has been working with the External Auditor to agree an approach to drawing the outstanding accounts to conclusion. The Council accepted an ‘except for’ qualification for the 2018/19 and 2019/20 accounts associated with the queries associated with the historic balances within the revaluation reserve and the capital adjustment account. The Council has accepted a disclaimer of opinion for the 2019/20 accounts and has implemented various improvements and additional controls to address the deficiencies reported by the External Auditor. Details of the auditor’s opinion can be found in the auditor’s ISA260 report.

The report requested that the wording be changed to:

The Council has been working with the External Auditor to agree an approach to drawing the outstanding accounts to conclusion. The Council accepted an ‘except for’ qualification for the 2018/19 accounts associated with the queries associated with the historic balances within the revaluation reserve and the capital adjustment account. The Council has accepted a disclaimer of opinion for the 2019/20 accounts and accepted a disclaimer of opinion for the 2020/21 accounts issued under the backstop regulations and has implemented various improvements and additional controls to address the deficiencies reported by the External Auditor. Details of the auditor’s opinion can be found in the auditor’s ISA260 report.

The Annual Governance Statement for 2021/22 originally said:

The Council has been working with the External Auditor and has agreed an approach to evidence the fixed asset accounting disclosures historical balances within the revaluation reserve and capital adjustment account to ensure the ‘except for’ qualification on these accounts for 2018/19 and 2019/20 is cleared for the accounts for the financial year 2020/21 and to progress the outstanding approval of the 2019/20 accounts which are currently unable to be approved due to a national issue on Infrastructure Asset valuation. Details of the conclusion and opinion can be found in the auditor’s ISA 260 reports.

The report requested that the wording be changed to:

The Council has been working with the External Auditor to agree an approach to drawing the outstanding accounts to conclusion. The Council accepted an ‘except for’ qualification for the 2018/19 accounts associated with the queries associated with the historic balances within the revaluation reserve and the capital adjustment account. The Council has accepted a disclaimer of opinion for the 2019/20 accounts and accepted a disclaimer of opinion for the 2020/21 and 2021/22 accounts issued under the backstop regulations and has implemented various improvements and additional controls to address the deficiencies reported by the External Auditor. Details of the auditor’s opinion can be found in the auditor’s ISA260 report.

A separate report on the 2022/23 Statement of Accounts explained that the council had missed the statutory deadline to publish the draft accounts, and that this had not been done yet. It was expected that the accounts would be published before the next meeting of the committee, scheduled for 17 January 2025.

Forward Work Programme

The Forward Work Programme proposed that:

• The 17 January 2025 meeting receive reports from Lucy-Anne Bryant, Emma Cooke and Kathryn Davis on Early Years Extended Entitlement and from Florah Shiringo and Darryl Freeman on Direct Payments Children’s.
• The 10 April 2025 meeting receive the Internal Audit Mandate and Charter.
• The 10 July 2025 meeting receive an update on Whistleblowing Activity from Jo Madeley and an update on Risk Management from Catherine Pink.