Issue - meetings

Report of the Director - Finance and Corporate Services

Mr Surridge from Forvis Mazars, the council’s external auditors, presented the External Audit Annual Plan 2025/26.

Mr Surridge advised that the Council was in a good position, with the Financial Statements having been published in draft well in advance of the deadline. He advised that the Audit Plan set out the approach to the audit for the year and confirmed that they were a third of the way through their audits for the year. He said that financial statements work would focus on key risk areas, including management override of controls. He noted that there had been an accounting change in relation to the way that land and property was valued.

Mr Surridge advised that work would also be undertaken in relation to value for money arrangements, which assessed financial sustainability, with a programme of works completed to produce the Auditor’s Annual Report which would be received by the Group no later than November 2026.

It was RESOLVED that the Governance Scrutiny Group scrutinised the 2025/26 External Audit Annual Plan.