Agenda, decisions and draft minutes

To receive any apologies for absence.

Apologies had been received from Councillors Andy Sully, Lee Baker, Mike Caswell, Diogo Rodrigues and Rosemary Woods

Cllr Mandy Chilcott substituted for Cllr Diogo Rodrigues

Cllr Sue Osborne substituted for Cllr Rosemary Woods

To receive and note any declarations of interests in respect of any matters included on the agenda for consideration at this meeting.

(The other registrable interests of Councillors of Somerset Council, arising from membership of City, Town or Parish Councils and other Local Authorities will automatically be recorded in the minutes: City, Town & Parish Twin Hatters - Somerset Councillors 2023 )

There were none.

The Chair to advise the Committee of any items on which members of the public have requested to speak and advise those members of the public present of the details of the Council’s public participation scheme.

For those members of the public who have submitted any questions or statements, please note, a three minute time limit applies to each speaker and you will be asked to speak before Councillors debate the issue.

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No questions or statements were received.

To consider the report.

The Audit Committee:

The Interim Chief Finance Officer (Section 151 Officer) was invited to speak.  In turn delegated to the external auditors to first present their audit findings report.

The report set out the final set of 2022/23 financial statements (accounts) for South Somerset District Council and the completion of the subsequent external audit.

The financial statements and letter of management representation required Audit Committee approval, to be finalised.  Along with this, the audit findings report and the auditors draft opinion were presented for noting and provided assurance for the Committee in their approval role.

It was estimated the cost of the external audit would be in the region of £236K.

The Audit Committee asked some questions and made several comments which were responded to at the meeting, as follows:

·       The Committee thanked the staff for completing the audit.  The Council had underestimated the ability of externals it would take to produce accounts and complete the audit. Lessons had been learned.  The Committee would recommend it would have been more cost effective if audits of this type had been done in-house by the Council. 

·       It was an unusual audit in terms of how many adjustments had been reported on.

·       Members noted that a number of key staff had left the Council and this had caused delays.

·       Members queried the computer systems used to produce the South Somerset District Council accounts.  The Committee had discussed the computer systems at previous meetings. This was confirmed as E5 the South Somerset Legacy finance system and not D365.

·       The external audit looked back at legacy council accounts.  The Value for Money report included all the legacy councils who the external auditors acted for and gave recommendations for the new unitary authority.  This had previously been reported to the Committee.

·       The Lead Officer said some final consistency checks had been carried out by the auditors and these were tabled on the day. Subsequently they have been published on the internet.

·       Members were disappointed to see that some assets had been counted twice.

·       The auditors were asked about the level of assurance that could be gained given the number of findings. The external auditors had had to prioritise issues so they could give the greatest level of reasonable assurance possible to the public on the accounts.  The priorities had been set according to levels of risk. The audit opinion therefore gives assurance the accounts are materially correct, now including the adjustments highlighted have been made.

·       Members noted the Council had planned to over-provide to cover the financing of some of its debts (known as Minimum Revenue Provision).

·       There was concern about the number of errors which the legacy council had made in its accounting.  The external auditors explained the use of the unusable and useable reserves which had added up to £9.5m, in response to a focused question from Members. 

·       The reclassification of Huish Park was not the sole cause of the delay in this audit.  Members queried how the classification had been made.  This had been human error  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.