The number of councils missing the statutory accounts deadline for publishing their accounts almost doubled this year, according to new analysis by the Public Sector Audit Appointments (PSAA).
A report on the results of auditors’ work for local government bodies’ 2017/18 accounts found that 50 authorities (14%) missed the deadline, compared to just 26 last year (7.2%).
The statutory deadline moved forward from the end of September to the end of July this year, although the report cited “auditor resource constraints” in four of the cases.
The report said: “The most common reasons for delays in issuing the opinion on the 2017/18 accounts were technical accounting/audit issues; various errors identified during the audit; insufficient availability of staff at the audited body to support the audit; problems with the quality of supporting working papers; and draft accounts submitted late for audit.”
Despite the increased delays, Jon Hayes, PSAA’s chief officer, took a positive line on the number of councils submitting their accounts on time.
He said: “These results are very encouraging and reflect the considerable efforts of local government finance staff and auditors to strive towards issue of the audit opinion by 31 July.
“However, more work will be required next year to build on this result and try to achieve closer to 100 per cent of audit opinions issued by the statutory accounts publication deadline.”
The report published the names of 25 authorities that had still failed to submit their 2017/18 accounts by 31 September 2018.
Auditors issued “non-standard conclusions” on 32 councils for 2017/18, up from 30 last year.
Adverse conclusions were issued to Birmingham City Council, Derby City Council, Somerset County Council and Surrey County Council, with the remainder of the non-standard conclusions coming under the “qualified except for” category.
However, this is the second year that auditors have not issued a more serious “public interest report”, after Derby City Council and City of York Council each received one in 2016.
Stephen Sheen, managing director of Ichabod’s Industries, said: “Despite all the headlines about the impact of austerity, outsourcing failures, objections to LOBO loans, late accounts publication, etc, no public interest reports have been issued by auditors in the last two years.
“This is in spite of the auditors’ statutory duty to consider whether, in the public interest, they should make a report on any matter coming to their notice during the audit, so it can be considered by members and/or brought to the public’s attention.”
However, Sheen added that there is “very little meat” in the PSAA’s annual report.
He said: “It is always a slight disappointment that the opportunity has been missed to provide more information on how successful authorities achieved their success and what explained the failures of the “failing” authorities.”
Former chief executive of Boston Borough Council, Richard Harbord, agreed, saying: “These reports do not have the impact that the reports by the Audit Commission had.
“PSAA is not a very upfront body and many authorities are unhappy at the quality of the audit they now receive.
“There is a feeling that because the fees charged by auditors are much lower than under the Audit Commission, that firms can only carry it out if they use trainees and more junior staff with less experience than previously.”
