The publication of Bedford Borough Council’s draft Statement of Accounts has been delayed because the system is “broken”, a meeting heard.
The draft Statement of Accounts for 22/23 was due to be published at the end of May, but now the plan is to publish by the end of July.
On Wednesday (June 28) the council’s Audit Committee was updated on the delay by Julie McCabe, the council’s interim assistant chief executive (finance) and chief finance officer.
“Unfortunately, we were unable to meet the deadline due to resource issues that were continuing due to delays in the 21/22 audit,” she said.
“We had hoped that we would be able to publish by the end of June.
“We now have a revised deadline set for the end of July that we have confidence that we will be able to meet, ” she said.
Ms McCabe said only 37 per cent of local authorities did manage to publish by the statutory deadline.
The Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015 required local authorities to publish unaudited financial statements by May 31, 2023
Councillor David Sawyer (LibDems, De Parys ) said that in his view, the delay is not the fault of the council or the auditors.
“It’s an issue with the system of local authority audits, which one can only describe as broken – it is just not working,” he said.
“The stats that Julie read out in terms of the proportion of local authorities who fail to file accounts by the statutory deadline just shows that point.
“The government has to take responsibility for this, and, as usual, local authorities are way down the list of things that they care about,” he said.
Councillor Robert Rigby (Conservatives, Bromham) asked what the resource issue was.
Ms McCabe said the council doesn’t have the resources to deal with the statement of accounts, the current audit process, and day-to-day issues.
“It’s not just finance, property in particular is another area that is heavily involved in providing asset values and investment values for the statement of accounts.
“So it’s across the board,” she said.
by John Guinn
Local Democracy Reporter
