Agenda item

To consider the Audit Committee Work Programme.  

7.1            Attention was drawn to the Audit Committee Work Programme, circulated at Pages No. 12-18, which Members were asked to consider.

7.2            The Head of Corporate Services indicated that work on the review of the Council’s overall risk management arrangements would commence shortly and would include training for Members and Managers.  It would ultimately lead to the development of a new Risk Management Strategy and Corporate Risk Register which would be monitored by the Audit Committee on a quarterly basis.  It was not feasible to bring this to the next meeting of the Committee but it was hoped it would be ready by the end of the year and the work programme would be updated to move this item from 21 September to 13 December accordingly. 

7.3            A Member noted that a number of items relating to the Statement of Accounts 2016/17 had been deleted from the Agenda for today’s meeting.  She understood that these items had originally been brought forward from September in preparation for the early closure of accounts the following year and she raised concern that this had not been achieved.  The Head of Finance and Asset Management confirmed that these items had been brought forward to test preparedness for the forthcoming year.  From the Council’s point of view, the accounts had been closed on time at the end of May; however, the external auditors had not been able to audit the accounts in time for them to come to today’s meeting.  Clearly next year it would be crucial to meet the deadlines and Officers would need to work with Grant Thornton to achieve this.  The Audit Manager from Grant Thornton reiterated that it had originally been agreed that the accounts would be submitted to the present meeting in order to ensure they were signed-off by 31 July, in line with the new regulations for 2017/18.  Unfortunately, due to resourcing issues and people leaving the organisation, Grant Thornton had approached certain Councils to establish whether there was any flexibility to extend these deadlines.  On the basis that a meeting date had already been set for the Tewkesbury Borough Council Audit Committee in September which would ensure that the national deadline for 2016/17 was still achieved, the Head of Finance and Asset Management had agreed to an extension.  The early closure of the accounts was two-fold; partly to test the Council’s ability to meet the new deadlines - which Tewkesbury Borough Council had achieved - and to check for any major issues.  The accounts were currently in the process of being analysed and early indications were that the quality was of the same high standard as in previous years.  He provided assurance that, had the statutory deadline for this year been 31 July, alternative arrangements would have been made to ensure this was attained and procedures were currently being put in place to make certain that adequate resources would be available to meet this deadline going forward.

7.4            It was

RESOLVED          That the Audit Committee Work Programme be NOTED.