Agenda item

The Council’s new Head of Corporate Finance and Accounting, David Dobbs, attended the meeting, and gave an update on the current position with regard to the 2018/19 accounts (Minute 54).

He began by confirming that the Council had supplied further information to its previous external auditor KPMG in relation to an objection to the 2016/17 accounts, and was waiting to hear back from them. This objection had an impact on the accounts for successive years. There were also objections to the 2017/18 and 2018/19 accounts which needed to be resolved, as well as the issue of the asset valuations for the 2018/19 accounts. Re-stated accounts had been submitted to EY for 2018/19 and it was performing additional audit procedures particularly in relation to valuation procedures. He hoped to be able to finalise the 2018/19 statement of accounts and bring them back to the Committee soon. 

Finance staff were currently working to close the draft 2019/20 accounts, and these would be published for public inspection. Local electors would then be able to raise objections, as had happened with previous years – one person had raised objections for three consecutive years which the external auditors had not yet dealt with, leading to the current backlog. Part of Mr Dobbs’ role was to address these previous years’ accounts and ensure that the issues were resolved by the external auditors as quickly as possible. Mr Dobbs emphasised that it was not unusual for accounts to be outstanding, and some Councils faced more significant backlogs than Bromley.

Responding to questions, Mr Dobbs commented on the possible motivation behind the objections to the accounts, which he confirmed were detailed and extensive. A Member suggested that Mr Dobbs had an opportunity as a new officer to make a personal approach to the objector to try to resolve some of the issues. It was not open to the Council to dismiss the objections as vexatious – this was a matter for the external auditor, and auditors were open to legal challenge from objectors if they rejected objections without good reason. Mr Dobbs confirmed that considerable additional fees would be charged by the external auditors which the Council had little control over. Part of his remit was to press the external auditor to resolve these objections. A new Code of Audit Practice had taken effect in April 2020 which set out a timeline of six months for auditors to deal with objections (from the point of accepting the objection). This was not retrospective, but it did indicate that the problem had been recognised at a national level and the Code should be helpful in future. Mr Dobbs explained that the current delay with the 2018/19 accounts appeared to be that a senior partner at EY had not had time to look at the work done by more junior staff following the revaluations. Mr Dobbs’ team were pressing EY on this. 

The Chairman confirmed that she and the Vice-Chairman had held regular meetings with the officers concerned to monitor the situation.

With regard to minute 55, the Director of Corporate Services stated that he understood that a response had been provided on the issue of postal votes for the Lewisham West and Penge constituency in the 2019 General Election, but he would check this. (Note: It was subsequently confirmed that details had been sent to Cllr Allen on 14^th February 2020.) 

With regard to minute 60, the chairman commented that she had hoped that the programme of meetings would be adhered to, but the response to the pandemic had necessitated changes, as agreed by the Urgency Committee. A Member commented that an amended programme should have been circulated to Members. 

Councillor Kira Gabbert requested that the minutes be corrected to record that she was present at the meeting on 11^th February 2020.

RESOLVED that, with the addition of Councillor Gabbert’s name, the minutes of the meeting held on 11^th February 2020, excluding exempt information, be confirmed.