Council accounts and Annual Governance Statement

Finance and budget

The Statement of Accounts are the formal accounts of the Council. Their purpose is to inform you of the finances of the Council.

Statement of accounts

Historic statements

The Accounts and Audit (Coronavirus) Amendments Regulations 2021 extend the statutory deadlines for 2020/21 for all local authorities.

Statement of accounts 2020 to 2021

Public inspection notice 2020 to 2021 [PDF, 0.2MB]

Changes to financial reporting deadlines for 2020 to 2021

In response to an unprecedented situation relating to the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to reduce the immediate pressure on councils and auditors to meet statutory audit deadlines, the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015 have been amended to allow the publication of the Statement of Accounts and the Public Inspection of the Accounts to be delayed.

Draft Accounts

The unaudited Statement of Accounts are required to be published on the Council's website no later than 2 August 2021.

Public Inspection

To give local authorities more flexibility, the requirement for the Public Inspection period to include the first 10 working days of June has been removed. Instead, local authorities must commence the Public Inspection period on or before the first working day of August 2021.

The commencement of Public Inspection will be published on the Council's website in due course.

Due to the historic delays in respect of prior years accounts finalisation – experienced by the internal Finance team, and as reported to the Audit and Governance Committee – there has been a delay in the completion and subsequent publication of the draft Accounts for 2020/21. The Finance team are currently working with the external auditors to resolve the final outstanding issues relating to the Accounts for 2018/19 and 2019/20; it is anticipated that the audited Accounts will be published as soon as reasonably practicable.

Audited Accounts

The publication date for audited Accounts has moved from 31 July to 30 September 2021 for all local authority bodies.

Due to the historic delays in respect of prior years accounts finalisation – experienced by both the external auditors and the internal Finance team, and as reported to the Audit and Governance Committee – there will be a delay in the completion of the audit and subsequent publication of the audited Accounts for 2020/21. The Finance team are currently working with the external auditors to resolve the final outstanding issues relating to the Accounts for 2018/19 and 2019/20; it is anticipated that the audited Accounts will be published as soon as reasonably practicable.

The external audit of the draft statement of accounts for the year ended 31 March 2021 has not yet been completed by our external auditors, EY LLP, due to having not completed the audit of the 2018/19 financial statements. This situation is allowed for by Regulation 10, paragraph (2a) of the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015. Therefore this notification explains, as per paragraph (2a), that we are not yet able to publish our audited 2020/21 final statement of accounts in line with deadline of 30 September 2021, as per paragraph (1). The Governance & Assurance Committee will consider the results of the 2020/21 audit, after which we will publish the final audited accounts.

The role of the Finance Service here is to ensure that the council’s money is spent wisely and in accordance with the priorities that have been agreed for the council.

We strive to be open about our finances and about letting you know how the money is being used.

Statement of accounts 2019 to 2020

The Statutory Statement of Accounts for 2019 to 2020 are also still subject to external audit, a draft set of accounts will be posted as soon as they are available

Statement of accounts 2018 to 2019

Statement of accounts 2017 to 2018

Annual performance to 31 March 2018

Please find below a PDF copy of our annual assessment of governance and performance up to 31 March 2018:

Annual Governance Statement

Annual Governance Statement [PDF, 0.2MB]

For further information, see also our Year-End Position Report on Finance, Performance and Risk: Item 6 of the Scrutiny and Overview Committee Agenda.

Code of Corporate Governance

Our Code of Corporate Governance [PDF, 0.3MB]describes the framework in which we direct and control our functions and relate to our communities. It was agreed by Audit and Corporate Governance Committee in September 2017 and will be evaluated annually within the Annual Governance Statement (see above).