Issue - meetings

Report of the External Auditor

Members were presented with the External Audit plan for the year ending 31 March 2025 that set out the strategy for the external audit of HBBC for 2024/25. This included the approach to building back assurance following the disclaimed audit opinions issued in 2020/21, 2021/22 , 2022/23 and 2023/24.

The report highlighted that External Audit would not be able to build back all the missing assurances from previous years during 2024/25 and therefore there remained an ongoing risk that the audit opinion would need to be disclaimed. The plan proposed how assurance would be built back by our external auditors over the new few years.

In response to a question regarding the Local Government Re-organisation and how this may impact this timetable, it was confirmed that the 2027/28 audit opinion would move forward as part of this transfer of the opening balances to the new Authority. Therefore it was hoped to return to an un-modified opinion for that year.

In response to additional questions from members, officers confirmed that:

-       External funding (£20k) had been received to support the fee costs for this work;

-       The VFM work hadn’t been completed yet, so there wouldn’t be any results available;

-       Internal audit looked at some of the risk work on a sample basis, so assurance was there that the necessary controls and procedures were in place;

-       There was a possibility that the External Auditors might be able to give a modified opinion on the accounts for 2026/27 if the build back work went as anticipated, which would be an improvement on disclaimed opinions.

It was proposed by Councillor Webber-Jones, seconded by Councillor Williams and

                        RESOLVED – the report be noted.