The Committee received a report (a copy of which is appended in the Minute Book) setting out the Auditor’s Annual Report for 2024/25, including the commentary on the Value for Money arrangements for the Council.
The Audit Partner, Ernst & Young LLP, Claire Mellons set out the report and invited questions from the Committee.
In response to questions from the Committee, the Audit Partner, Ernst & Young LLP advised that she could not issue the certificate for closure of the Audit until the National Audit Officer had completed their work on the whole of government accounts, however this would not prevent her signing off her audit opinion on the financial statements or concluding on Value for Money work. She advised that Ernst & Young LLP were on target to complete all of the planning procedures for 2024/25 which was the biggest building block in terms of the Council getting back to full assurance. There were a number of questions around the logistics of Audit Opinions in relation to Local Government Reorganisation that Ernst & Young LLP were discussing. The Firm had started to get some steer from Government where they should be focusing their directions and the intention was that over the following 3-6 months, they should be able to give the Committee more certainty on what the Council’s path was going to look like. There needed to be careful thought over the coming years over the logistics of the accounting and audit work for Constituent Authorities in the context of LGR.
In response to a query from the Committee as to the overspend relating to the additional costs arising from the creation of the transformation and community health funds, the Audit Partner, LLP would respond after the meeting as to where this information had been taken from.
Whereupon, it was
RESOLVED
that the Committee commented on and noted the Auditor’s Annual Report 2024/25.