Issue - meetings

Report of the Director – Finance and Corporate Services

The Head of Finance presented the Council’s statutory Statement of Accounts for the financial year 2023/24.

The Group were advised that there had been a delay in submitting the Statement of Accounts for approval due to delays in the pension assurances with Nottinghamshire County Council, which is completely outside the Council’s control.

The Head of Finance highlighted some of the key salient points from the Statement of Accounts which were summarised within the supporting information in the officers covering report.

The Group noted that there had been no significant issues with the audit process and the work undertaken by the finance team and other officers in preparing the accounts and supporting papers and managing the audit process.

The Head of Finance advised the Group that there had been a significant increase in the audit fee in comparison to previous years as a result of the inclusion of new audit requirements. The Group noted that a government grant of £18k was received to offset the increased cost of the audit.

It was RESOLVED that the Governance Scrutiny Group:

a)    Approve the Statement of Accounts for 2023/24 (Appendix A) including the annual Governance Statement at Section B page XXXI

b)    Delegate authority to the Director of Finance and Corporate Services to make any changes necessary resulting from the matters outstanding on the accounts and advise both the Chair of Governance Scrutiny Group and Finance Portfolio Holder accordingly, such changes to be reported to the Governance Scrutiny Group.