Issue - meetings

To consider the report

To accept the Wales Audit report

The report was submitted by Alan Hughes (Wales Audit Office) and Ian Howse (Deloitte)

It was noted that the accounts would be available to the public until September, with the external auditors submitting their final audit of the accounts after that time.

Attention was drawn to the significant risks which had been identified for investigation by the Council, including the overriding of regulations by managers (which is a common risk to all Authorities), the impact of the national Covid-19 crisis, the completeness of expenditure accrued, GwE income and grant expenditure, looking into the provision made in relation to the McCloud (Pensions) case judgement and initial work to review readiness to submit leases.

In the context of Auditing Performance for the forthcoming year, it was noted that Covid-19 had affected some of the plan's contents. A decision was made to cancel the audit of the Wellbeing Act, and to focus on following the Council's recovery procedure. It was highlighted that the rest of the plan remained the same, and that the Auditors continued to collect assurance and assess risk, undertake work on financial sustainability, and complete the regional review of residential and nursing care commissioning (with scoping work and discussions to commence in September). Attention was drawn to the intention to undertake local work on 'our way of working', but it was noted that it would be necessary to have discussions with officers to determine whether the subject remained appropriate.

RESOLVED to accept the Wales Audit Office report