The Committee received Report number
PAS/WS/23/004, which presented the results from Ernst and
Young’s (EY) audit of the 2021 to 2022 financial statements
for West Suffolk Council. The report
set out issues they were required to report on to those charged
with governance. EY were also required
to report on the results of the work undertaken to assess the
council’s arrangements to secure value for money (VM) in the
use of resources.
The council’s unaudited 2021 to 2022
Statement of Accounts, signed by the Chief Finance Officer (Section
151 Officer) on 28 June 2022, had been updated to reflect any
adjustments recommended by EY over this period as a result of their
audit work. Members were informed that
these adjustments did not affect the council’s overall
financial position and were in most cases merely presentational
changes.
At the time of writing the report, it was not
anticipated that there would be any significant issues with the
accounts, but there were still a number of audit procedures to be
concluded.
A copy of the Audit Results Report dated March
2023 was attached at Appendix A. An
updated Addendum to Appendix A dated 28 March 2023 was presented to
the Committee by Mark Russell (EY Partner).
Attached at Appendix B to the report was West
Suffolk Council’s Letter of Representation, on behalf of the
Council in accordance with the audit of the financial statements
for West Suffolk Council for the year ended 31 March 2022.
Mark Russell presented the report and referred
the Committee to the Addendum A (28 March 2023 – pages 1 to
16) and updated members on further progress made in the audit
process as follows:
-
Page 5:
·
Management Override – Audit procedures substantially
completed with no issues found to date.
·
Revenue expenditure – Audit procedures substantially
completed.
-
Page 6:
·
Valuation of the Mildenhall Hub – It had been determined the
valuation of the Hub fell within a reasonable range and no issues
raised.
·
Valuation of Solar Farm – Work would be concluded by 31 March
2023. There were no findings from the
audit procedure to date.
·
Infrastructure assets – Work had concluded. The Council had followed the CIPFA Code and had
not applied the statutory instrument concerning infrastructure
assets.
·
Other valuations - Audit procures were substantially
completed. Currently working through
the final responses to EY’s audit queries concerning asset
valuations.
-
Page 7:
·
Group account consolidation – EY had not
received a response to date on group instructions issued to the
auditor for Barley Homes Ltd
·
Pensions liability valuations – A £2.1m
difference had been identified due to the timing of the IAS19
report and the recent triannual valuation which included the
pension position as at 31 March 2022.
EY were awaiting an updated IAS19 report to assess the impact on
the council’s pension liability.
-
Page 8:
·
Two misstatements had been identified during the
course of the audit, which had been corrected. EY advised these had no overall impact on the
council’s total unusable reservices. ...
view the full minutes text for item 174.