External Audit of the Authority comprises three areas:
- Statement of Accounts
- Value for Money (VFM) Review
- Whole of Government Accounts (WGA)
and the Audit is not concluded until all three are completed.
The Authority’s Statement of Accounts for 2020/21 were approved by the Authority’s Audit and Standards Committee on 19th January 2022 and was fully signed off after the completion of the external audit on 21st January 2022. This document includes our external auditor Grant Thornton’s independent audit report and audit certificate, the narrative report and all of the Authority’s financial statements, including the Comprehensive Income and Expenditure Statement for the financial year and the Balance Sheet as at 31 March 2021.
The Value for Money review was completed satisfactorily in January.
The requirements for the Whole of Government Accounts, however have been repeatedly delayed by central government and the return will not be released until at least July 2022. Until this is received it cannot be completed and subject to audit.
Until the audit of the WGA is complete, the Audit cannot be closed, but once this has been done, we will post the formal Notice of Conclusion of the Audit.