Agenda item

Members considered the Audited Statement of Accounts for 2019/2020.

An introduction was provided by WLDC’s Section 151 Officer, who highlighted the following points:

·         Additional work had been undertaken on the Covid 19 pandemic – as the accounts reflected, the Authority was in a good position as the financial reserves met liabilities;

·         The balance sheet reflected net financial assets of £5.85 million.  Useable reserves totalled just over £24 million, with £16 million set aside for future investment and service improvements.  A General Working Fund Balance of £4.2 million was held, against a minimum requirement of £2.5 million;

·         The Comprehensive Income and Expenditure Statement showed net expenditure of £1.158 million; there was a deficit on the ‘Provision of Services’ totalling £8.007m which was reconciled to the actual surplus;

·         The £340,000 surplus was contributed to the General Fund Balance at the end of the financial year;

·         The Actual overall Outturn has realised a surplus of £2.2m, of which £0.815m related to one off budget provision for projects funded from reserves and which had approval for carry forward as they crossed consecutive financial years;

·         There had been a revaluation of the pension fund in light of both the McLeod and Goodwin legal cases.  The arguments in these cases were (separately) around age and sexual orientation discrimination.

Following this introduction, Members asked questions of officers present.  Further information arose from these conversations:

·         The cash flow statement in the report reflected those items of capital expenditure, operational and financial activities.  £9 million of receipts had been taken from long and short term borrowing; this number was £16 million in the previous financial year.  £5 million less had been invested in property plant and equipment compared to the previous financial year.  However, there had been an increase in investments in long-term assets of £3 million;

·         There had been a movement in the ‘carrying amount’ on non-current assets of £3 million, due to the handing over of assets at Wilson Street and Bowling Green Road in Gainsborough, where development was due to take place;

·         If there had been a significant number of misstatements that individually were below the threshold for reporting, then these would be picked up by the external auditor as misstatements were noted cumulatively by them.  If they were at a ‘trivial’ level, which is to say at or below £28,000, then officers would decide on whether to report this to Governance and Audit Committee;

·         Business grants utilised by Councils were issued by central Government; any balance held by the Authority would be as a creditor;

·         Property and asset values were reassessed every financial year;

·         There had been a variance between the previous year and preceding year’s working capital due to short-term borrowing taking place on current liabilities;

·         The Public Works Loans Board (PWLB) increased their interest rates by 1% in 2019 to discourage Councils from investing in properties.  As a result of this rate increase, the Authority had taken short term borrowing at a lower rate than the PWLB were offering.

The paper was then moved and seconded, and it was unanimously RESOLVED to:

(1)  Confirm that there were no concerns arising from the financial statements that needed to be brought to the attention of the Full Council;

(2)  Approve the Statement of Accounts for 2019/2020;

(3)  Permit the Section 151 Officer and the Chairman of the Governance and Audit Committee to certify the letter of representation to the auditor of the Accounts, Mazars, on completion of the audit.