Usually the arrival of the annual auditors report at a York Council meeting produces little excitement (or even mild interest).

Things may be a little different at a governance meeting which is scheduled to take place on 31st March.

While the Councils auditors Mazers give a generally positive view of the Council’s financial arrangements, they do take a pop at the process used to compensate the Councils last Chief Executive when she left the authority, quite suddenly, in 2019.

The Council has issued the following comments;

City of York Council has published its 2019/20 final accounts, which will be considered by the Council’s Audit and Governance Committee later this month.

The council’s accounts are subject to external audit by Mazars LLP, who previously highlighted four outstanding areas at the Audit and Governance Committee meeting in November 2020 that required final approval:

• The heritage assets valuation where information has now been provided by York Museums Trust but was delayed due to the impact of Covid-19. Mazars have made a control recommendation in respect of the arrangements to review, challenge and document the output of valuation experts.
• The council’s pension fund administrators, North Yorkshire Pension Fund, are unable to confirm pension figures in the accounts. This issue is not specific to City of York Council and affects all local authority members of the pension fund. Mazars have discussed future arrangements with the council to put arrangements in place for a full valuation in 2020/21.
• Additional information regarding remuneration packages from the council is currently being worked through by Mazars. Mazars concluded that the sums involved do not present a risk of material misstatement.  Additional information regarding remuneration packages is ongoing and will be published when completed.
• The audit of the ‘Whole of Government Accounts (WGA)’ return has yet to be completed due to a delays in receiving guidance from the National Audit Office.

Mazars LLP have now completed the majority of this work and provided the council with an updated Audit Completion report, together with a final version of the Accounts published in advance of the next meeting of Audit and Governance for information. 

Mazars identified there are no matters arising on the management override of controls or from work on revenue recognition.  Mazars have not identified any material errors or uncertainties in the financial statements or highlighted any indication of material estimation error in respect of defined benefit liability valuation. 

Responding the publication of final accounts, Debbie Mitchell, Chief Finance Officer, said:

Despite the impact of the pandemic, the Council was still able to complete and deliver draft accounts to the external auditor by the end of June 2020, a full month ahead of the statutory deadline. 

“Following detailed assessment of four areas identified by the auditors as requiring further work, Mazars have not identified any material errors in the financial statements and have indicated that the accounts give a true and fair view of the financial position of the council and that they have been properly prepared.

“Further work is taking place to provide additional information regarding remuneration packages and when this work is completed, it will be published and shared with the Audit and Governance Committee.  This does mean that the final audit certificate cannot yet be issued.  However, the auditor has made clear that this objection does not have a material impact on the financial statements. 

“We welcome the feedback from the external auditor and fully recognise that there are areas for improvement. We look forward working with Mazars to develop an appropriate action plan once this outstanding matter is published.”