Issue - meetings

To update Cabinet on the actions taken in response to a breach of a statutory reporting deadline.

RESOLVED that the contents of the Monitoring Officer’s update report be noted.

Further to the decision taken by the Cabinet at its meeting held on 21 July 2023 (Minute 27 resolution (d) referred), Members considered a report of the Monitoring Officer which provided an update on the actions taken by this Council in response to a breach of a statutory reporting deadline.

Cabinet was informed that this report was based on the Monitoring Officer’s Section 5 report, which had been submitted to the meeting of the full Council held on 26 September 2023. That report to Council was attached as an Appendix to the Monitoring Officer’s report (A.7) for Members’ information and reference.

It was reported that, since Cabinet’s meeting on 21 July 2023, a number of actions / events had occurred summarised as follows:-

·      the Council’s Statement of Accounts for 2022/23 had been published by 1 August 2023, with the period for public inspection therefore commencing on that date. This had brought to a close the period whereby the Council had remained in breach of the statutory requirement to publish the Accounts by 1 June 2023;

·      reference to this issue had been included within the Annual Governance Statement 2023, which formed part of the Statement of Accounts for 2022/23; and

·      the Government had now published its intended response to the on-going audit delays.  Essentially, the aim behind the Government’s proposed approach was to set statutory ‘back stop’ deadlines that required External Auditors to conclude their audit work and publish either qualified or unqualified opinions based on the level of work they had completed by those statutory deadlines.

Greater detail on those summarised points was to be found in the “Legal Requirements” section of the Monitoring Officer’s aforementioned Section 5 report to Full Council.

In order to enable Cabinet to formally receive the required update from the Council’s Monitoring Officer on this matter:-

            It was moved by Councillor M E Stephenson, seconded by Councillor Baker and:-

RESOLVED that the contents of the Monitoring Officer’s update report be noted.