Agenda item

The Service Director Finance will submit a report presenting the Council’s revised 2019/20 Statement of Accounts following the statutory audit period.

Further to Minute 67 of the meeting held on the 25^th June, 2020, the Service Director Finance submitted the revised audited Statement of Accounts for 2019/20 which incorporated all changes agreed with the auditor.

It was noted that the only significant change was in relation to the Council’s pension deficit (on an accounting basis) as at the 31^st March, 2020.  The Council had received information from the actuary in early April to enable it to meet its statutory deadline in respect of submitting its draft statement of accounts.  Contained within the suite of pensions information was the position for the Council’s assumed proportion of the pension fund assets and, in particular, the performance of such assets during the year.  It was further noted that the actuary used actual evidence up to the end of December with an estimate being made for the remainder of the financial year.  Ordinarily the difference between the estimated position and what actually transpired was not materially different, however due to the COVID-19 pandemic there was a difference of a notional £6.930m reduction on the value of the Council’s proportion of the pensions fund assets as at 31^st March, 2020 which, therefore, increased the net liability. 

It was reported that the adjustment detailed above had no effect on the useable reserves of the Council.  The way in which the Council provided/budgeted for its future pensions obligations was based on the funding basis, which was different to the position in the statement of accounts, which was based on the prescribed accounting standards.  The funding position, therefore, showed a relatively small deficit which the Council had plans to address over the medium term.

Arising out of the above and in response to questions about the triennial valuation position, the Service Director Finance explained that the information at 31^st March, 2019 set the future funding rates for the three year period to 2023/24.  The contributions of the Authority were set at approximately 2% higher than the previous future service rate but, combined with that, the deficit as reported previously of around £200m had almost been eliminated so in overall terms the Authority was contributing significantly less to the pension fund than it had previously. 

Written responses to questions asked by Members of the Committee were provided as follows:

·         It was noted that comments on the move to COVID Tier 3 would be included prior to publication as would minor drafting errors

·         In relation to the Narrative Report/Executive Summary, it was noted that this would be published as a separate stand-alone document and be presented alongside the Statement of Accounts

·         Questions raised in respect of the changes to the accounts since being previously submitted to Committee in June were referred to above

·         Questions in relation to the Glassworks would be addressed at the close of the meeting given the commercial sensitivity around the issues raised.  It was again pointed out that regular reports would be submitted to the Committee throughout the remaining build phase and beyond.

RECOMMENDED TO FULL COUNCIL ON THE 26^TH NOVEMBER, 2020  that the revised audited Statement of Accounts 2019/20 be approved.