Agenda item

(Including Audit scope and additional work letter)

Grant Thornton

Barrie Morris of Grant Thornton (GT), introduced his colleague Aditi Chandramouli, who would be replacing Sophie Morgan-Bower as the Engagement Manager.  Sophie explained that the Progress Report paper provided the committee with a brief summary of progress of the audit to date; reminding members that GT had issued their opinion on CBCs 2018/19 Statement of Accounts on the 30 July 2019.  She explained that GT would start planning for the 2019/20 audit and issue a detailed audit plan which would set out the way in which the audit of the council’s 2019/20 financial statements would be approached.  She noted that GT had previously brought a separate report on the certification of grants, but that this was no longer required and had therefore included their findings in this report.  The certification of the pooling of housing capital receipts claim would be finalised by the 7 February 2020 deadline.  A letter relating to audit fees had been circulated with the agenda and Barrie would present this in due course.  In terms of certification of the Housing Benefits claim, the thresholds were set by the DWP and given the sums involved, any error exceeding 2p per week had to be reported and extrapolated.  A number of errors were identified and extrapolated resulting in a Qualification Letter, though she stressed that these were not significant errors and the majority of these were less than £5 per year.  GT thanked the Housing Benefits Team for their support on this issue.  The paper highlighted a number of reports which could be of interest to members and she picked out the GT Sustainable Growth Index, a tool which sought to define and measure the components that create successful places and help frame future discussions, stimulate action and drive change. 

The following responses were given to member questions:

• The process and rules for the audit of the Housing Benefit claim were set by the DWP and were complex but made it possible to identify incorrect calculations.  The errors that had been identified were just that, errors, rather than fraudulent.  GT did share best practice, but each client was different and the opportunities for improvement had been discussed with the relevant officers.

Barrie referred members to the letter which had been circulated with the agenda.  He firstly apologised for the fact that it had been dated incorrectly.  Members would recall the audit fee letter than had come to committee last year and reminded members that the scale fee was set by the PSAA.  Things had moved on since and the letter set out the increased regulatory focus and an ever stricter quality environment.  Whilst there was no suggestion that materiality would change, the level of work having to be done was increasing and this had an impact GTs audit work and in turn, their fees.  There had been an effort to limit this increase to 20% in local authorities, which was still lower than a few years previous. 

A member noted that he felt the cost was in proportion to the assets held by the council, which equated to almost half a billion.

Members felt that GT provided an excellent service, which represented good value for money and were therefore comfortable with the proposed increase to fees. 

The Chairman thanked Sophie Morgan-Bower for always being well briefed and for the work she had done, and wished her well for the future and welcomed Aditi. 

No decision was required.