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Agenda item

External Auditor's Progress Report

To consider the External Auditor’s Progress Report.  

Minutes:

37.1          Attention was drawn to the external auditor’s progress report, circulated at Pages No. 39-52, which set out the progress that had been made in relation to the audit plan, together with any emerging national issues and developments that might be relevant to Tewkesbury Borough Council.  Members were asked to consider the report.

37.2          The Engagement Manager from Grant Thornton explained that there were two elements of the audit undertaken: financial statements audit and value for money.  In terms of the financial statements audit, it was very early in the cycle with work underway behind the scenes and, in the coming weeks and months, Grant Thornton would be meeting with relevant Officers and carrying out interim testing of individual transactions which would be reported as part of the audit plan update at the next Committee meeting in March, along with an update on the value for money audit.  Page No. 43 of the report contained a section on the certification of the housing benefit claim that had been undertaken at the end of last year.  The original deadline was the end of November; however, the Council had sought a short extension and she confirmed that the claim had been completed and certified by 13 December 2019 which was the extension agreed by the Department for Work and Pensions.  The main reason for the delay was because, as part of the initial tender for the work, Grant Thornton had agreed to do a lot of testing which had not been possible due to unforeseen circumstances meaning Grant Thornton had needed to find additional resources quite late on in the process.  She explained that a large number of errors had been identified due to the prescribed method of testing which meant that, for each error, another additional 40 cases were tested.  As such, it had been quite an achievement to meet the 13 December deadline.  The Engagement Lead and previous Engagement Manager had met with Tewkesbury Borough Council Officers earlier in the month to put a plan in place for next year to resolve some of the issues that had been identified as part of this audit in order to mitigate errors. 

37.3           The Engagement Manager went on to advise that the base level audit fee was set by Public Sector Audit Appointments (PSSA) Ltd. but, due to the changing scope of audit and the increasing pressure for external auditors to undertake more detailed work, there would be additional fees for 2019/20.  At the moment it was unclear exactly what those would be but Grant Thornton would write to the Section 151 Officer to alert him to the additional fees.  It was noted that some other authorities had seen a small increase on the 2018/19 fee but it was still less than the 2017/18 fee and therefore not significant.  Page No. 44 of the report listed all of the audit deliverables, some of which had already been completed, and when they would be reported to Committee.  The remainder of the report contained sector updates on what was happening in the world of audit for Members’ information.

37.4          It was

RESOLVED          That the external auditor’s progress report be NOTED.

Supporting documents: