The Council’s External Auditor (Grant Thornton) will report on recent work undertaken together with a summary of any emerging national issues and developments.
Minutes:
The Council’s External Auditor (Grant Thornton) reported on recent work undertaken and on future developments anticipated.
The External Auditors had met the Executive Director Core Services and the Service Director Finance last week to discuss the 2020/21 audit work. This had been an extremely useful meeting and such meetings would continue, possibly including the Chief Executive, on a quarterly basis. A meeting had also been held with the Head of Internal Audit, Anti-Fraud and Assurance to commence work on the changed approach to Value for Money work. External Audit would also continue to liaise with officers to provide training/awareness sessions for Members of the Committee on some of the key issues impacting on local authorities recently and particular reference was made to the issuing of a couple of public interest reports, one at Nottingham City Council in relation to their Energy Company and, more recently, in relation to the London Borough of Croydon and their interaction with their Housing Development Company.
The Housing Benefit Audit was being finalised and work was continuing on the pooling of Housing Receipts Grant which meant that work on the 2020/21 audit would commence before Easter.
In response to questioning, Mr Mills reported that the expectation was that the revised approach to Value for Money Work would probably require 10-20% more time compared to previous years which would largely be at a Manager and Engagement Lead level as the work required was highly specialised requiring liaison with senior staff within Local Authorities and NHS bodies. This would, of course, impact on the workload allocation within the External Audit Team and steps were taken to ensure that resources were appropriately allocated.
RESOLVED that the update be noted.