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 2021 to 2022

Public inspection notice 2021 to 2022 [PDF, 0.1MB]

Changes to financial reporting deadlines for 2021 to 2022

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 31 July 2022.

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 31 July 2022.

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

Due to the delay in respect of prior years’ accounts finalisation there has been a delay in the completion and subsequent publication of the draft Accounts for 2021/22. The Finance team are currently working with the external auditors to complete the Accounts for 2019/20 and 2020/21. The audited Accounts for 2021/22 will be published as soon as reasonably practicable.

Audited Accounts

The publication date for audited Accounts has moved from 31 July 2022 to 30 November 2022 for all local authority bodies.

Due to the delay in respect of prior years’ accounts finalisation there will be a delay in the completion of the audit and subsequent publication of the audited Accounts for 2021/22. The Finance team are currently working with the external auditors to complete the Accounts for 2019/20 and 2020/21. The audited Accounts for 2021/22 will be published as soon as reasonably practicable.

Further notifications will be placed on the website once the audit of 2019/20 and 2020/21 is complete and the 2021/22 Draft Statement of Accounts is available for public inspection.

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Statement of accounts 2020 to 2021

Changes to financial reporting deadlines for 2020 to 2021

Draft Accounts

The 2020/21 draft statements were published late due to delays from prior years accounts finalisation.

Statement of accounts 2019 to 2020

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).