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Proposed venue: Committee Room 1 & 2, The Guildhall, Market Square, Cambridge, CB2 3QJ. View directions
Contact: Democratic Services Committee Manager
Note: Note this meeting will not be livestreamed
No. | Item |
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Apologies Minutes: Apologies were received from Councillor Sheil. |
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Declarations of Interest Minutes: No declarations were declared. |
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Minutes: The minutes from the meeting held on 11 September 2024 were
agreed as a true and accurate record. |
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Public Questions Minutes: No public questions were received. |
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Review of Polling Districts, Polling Places and Polling Stations Additional documents:
Minutes: The Committee
received a report on the review of polling districts, polling places and
polling stations which must be conducted every five years. The next compulsory
review had to be completed by 31 January 2025. The Electoral
Services Manager said the following in response to Member’s questions.
i.
Would be happy to investigate all suggestions
for potential polling stations to consider their suitability.
ii.
Information for Tellers was provided by Officers
to the Election Agents which was expected to be shared with their relevant
personnel.
iii.
Laminated crib sheets were made available to
Polling Station Staff to hand out to Tellers on the day of the elections. It
was expected that Tellers would then pass on to the next incoming Teller when
there was a change throughout the day. iv.
Noted the comment it was important for Election
Agents to highlight with their Tellers any change in the rules and regulations.
The Committee
unanimously resolved to:
i.
Approve the amendments to three polling
districts in Cambridge, as laid out in the Proposed Changes, at Appendix A of
the Officer’s report.
ii.
Agree that the polling place for each polling
district is the polling district boundary. (See definition of terms at 4.1). |
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Annual Governance Statement and Local Code of Governance Additional documents:
Minutes: The Head of Shared Internal Audit informed
Members that under the title External Audit on page 44 of the agenda pack, this
paragraph had been updated (deleted External
Audit
In
November 2022 EY provided an “unqualified” audit opinion in their annual report for 2021/2022 which provided assurance. The Council was amongst
only 12% of local authorities to publish their Statement of Accounts on time
for that financial year. In
October 2023 the Public Sector Audit Appointments highlighted a cumulative
backlog of 918 delayed opinions in the Local Government sector. The Department
for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities proposed a backstop deadline, and
legislation was approved to allow accounts to be signed without a full external
audit. Progress
updates have been reported to the Civic Affairs Committee in July
2023
and July
2024
with an Interim Value for Money report. The Council has published information
about the delay on our
website. In response to the Members’ questions the Head of Shared
Internal Audit said the following:
i.
The
Accounts and Audit Regulations require the Council to review its governance
arrangements and prepare an Annual Governance Statement (AGS) to accompany the
Statement of Accounts.
ii.
Although
the draft statements were published earlier, the Council must continue to
account for the significant events up until the date that the Statement of
Accounts are approved.
iii.
Noted
the comment to the reference to Area Committees in the Code of Governance which
were currently suspended. Would remove the reference before publication. iv.
Would
provide information on the five complaints relating to Cambridge City Council
which had been upheld by The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO)
outside of the meeting as did not have the information available in the
meeting.
v.
From a
transparency point of view, it was important to make the public aware that
there was a complaints process, and to highlight the Council worked with the
Ombudsman. vi.
The
Member and Officer protocol referenced in the report could be found in part 5
of the Council’s constitution (p352). Constitution - Cambridge
City Council vii.
Would
share the draft AGS 2023/24 with the Committee. viii.
A
revised 2023/24 AGS would be brought to a future Committee meeting with the
next Statement of Accounts. The Committee unanimously resolved to:
i.
Approve
the Annual Governance Statement (AGS) attached at Appendix A of the Officer’s
report in advance of the Statement of Accounts. Noting the arrangements for
compiling, reporting on and signing the AGS; • the progress made on issues reported in the
previous year • the current review of effectiveness • the issues considered for inclusion in the
current AGS ii.
Note and
endorse the amendments to the updated Local Code of Corporate Governance
attached at Appendix B. |
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Statement of Accounts 2022-23 - Audit Opinion Additional documents:
Minutes: The committee
received a report introduced by the Interim Deputy Chief Finance Officer in
regarding the Statement of Accounts 2022/2023. Presenting the Audit
Results Report was the Audit Partner from Ernst & Young (EY). In response to
Members’ questions, the Audit Partner,
EY, and the Interim Deputy Chief Finance Officer said the following:
i.
Highlighted the local background and context of
the Executive Summary. The position had developed over the past few years
resulting in unaudited financial statements for 31 March 2023.The main reasons
for the Council’s financial statements not being prepared, audited and signed
to date included: ·
The post pandemic timelines resulted in audit
teams trying to move delayed audits on to completion, whilst finance teams were
trying to catch up, dealing with current priorities and future planning. This used a significant
amount of limited audit resource, leading to a lack of capacity to move onto
the 2022/23 audit year. ·
In addition, there were several new technical
issues and challenges to address during this period, including, accounting for
infrastructure assets, while having to consider the updated pension fund
valuations, which led to some delays to the prior year 2021/22 audit being
completed, with the audit opinion being signed on the 30 November 2022. ·
As a result, and taken together, this has
ultimately led to a lack of capacity to be able to commence the 2022/23 audit
year with sufficient time to be able to complete the audit.
ii.
There would be no further audit taken for the
period.
iii.
Due to the wider requirements of the local audit
system reset, this meant EY did not have the required resources available to
complete the detailed audit procedures needed to obtain sufficient appropriate
audit evidence to issue an unmodified audit report on the 2022/23 financial
statements. Therefore, EY were disclaiming opinion on the financial statements. iv.
Had followed legislation set out by the
Government to reset the local audit agenda. This clearly was not ideal and did
not provide the Council the assurances that would have usually been received,
but this was the current situation.
v.
Believed the accounts for 2022/23 were published
on time but the Council missed the 31 May deadline to publish the 2023/24 Financial Statement and were still
outstanding. vi.
EY continued to be the appointed auditor. vii.
Confirmed there was not enough resources to
perform an audit by the back stop date of 28th Feb 2025. The 2023/24 Financial
Statement not being available had contributed to the delay, therefore was it
was unrealistic to expect the audit to be completed in two months. viii.
EY had two primary responsibilities, to audit
the financial statements, no detailed audit testing had been undertaken but
planning work had been completed to identify the risks that needed to be
addressed. Those audit risks could be viewed at page 96 of the agenda pack. ix.
The second
area was in relation to value for money. EY had performed all procedures
in this area and were satisfied the arrangements the Council had in place were
adequate.
x.
In relation to 2023/24, EY would not be
performing audit procedures due to insufficient time to start and conclude an
audit by the back stop date. xi.
With regards to the 2024/25 audit, would hope
the Council could publish the draft financial statements to the timetable given
in the accounting audit regulations. EY would then perform the required audit
procedures. xii.
The Committee should be aware that it took time
to unwind a disclaimed audit opinion as there was not the assurance opening
balances and comparatives. It would be a further three years before the Council
returned all things being equal to a position where there was an unqualified
audit opinion on the Council’s financial statement. xiii.
There was 250 approximately, other local
authorities across the country in a similar position to the Councils who were
likely to have a disclaimed audit opinion. xiv.
The first year the Council could expect an
unqualified audit opinion would be 2026/27, all things being equal. xv.
Fees for public sector audits appointments were
set each year. xvi.
To rebuild assurances between now and the
2026/27 audit period, additional work would be essential. It would be for the
public sector audit appointments to determine what remuneration each audit firm
should get to enable to reach an unqualified audit opinion. xvii.
All audit firms working for the public sector
were in the same position, the local authority audit market was broken.
Legislation was trying to fix the market in which all audit firms were
operating. xviii.
Reiterated that the Public Sector Audit
Appointments as the contract holder set the audit fees and reviewed the level
of renumeration for work performed. They
were currently determining the fees for 2022/23. xix.
The Council had not published the 2022/23
financial statements by the due date of 31st May but June 22nd.
At that point there was a risk of significant weakness as the Council could not
publish on the date due. Further work on the value for money concluded it was
not unreasonable to be 23 days late in the context of where the local audit
currently was. xx.
The incoming expenditure account had aligned
with international accounting standards. The Head of Shared
Internal Audit stated he would be happy to speak with EY to determine if there
were any opportunities for the Internal Audit Team to provide assurance to
Members. It was important not to
duplicate work and it was not a substitute for a full external audit. Before the vote the
Head of Internal Audit shared with the Committee, comments made by the
Independent Person for information. The Committee unanimously
resolved to:
i.
Receive the Audit Results Report presented by EY
and the unaudited statement of accounts for 2022-23.
ii.
Approve the Statement of Accounts for the year
ended 31 March 2023 based on the current Reset and Recovery legislation.
iii.
That the Chair of the meeting be authorised to
sign the Management representation letter as shown in Appendix A of the
Officer’s Report for Those Charged with Governance. |
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Officer Delegated Decisions |
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Additional documents: Minutes: The Committee noted the decision. |
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Additional documents: Minutes: The Committee noted the decision. |