Issue - meetings

Dewi Morgan (Host Authority Head of Finance and Statutory Finance Officer) and Sian Pugh (Host Authority Assistant Head of Finance) to present the report.

To approve:

·       'ISA260’ report by Audit Wales in respect of NWEAB.

·       NWEAB’s final Statement of Accounts for 2023/24 (post-audit).

The report was presented by the Statutory Finance Officer.

RESOLVED

To approve:

·       'ISA260’ report by Audit Wales in respect of NWEAB.

·       NWEAB’s final Statement of Accounts for 2023/24 (post-audit).

REASONS FOR THE DECISION

The final version (post-audit) of the Statement of Accounts for 2023/24 is presented here. The main amendments since the pre-audit version were outlined in Appendix 3 of the Audit Wales ‘ISA260’.

DISCUSSION

It was confirmed that the annual Statement of Accounts presented in the Report had been prepared in accordance with the Code of Practice on Local Authority Accounting. It was elaborated that this had been verified by Audit Wales, the external auditors of the Ambition Board.

It was explained that information submitted within the Report had already been shared with the Board when the Joint Committee's Revenue and Capital Out-turn Position for 2023/24 was presented (17 May 2024) and when submitting a draft Statement of Accounts (19 July 2024).

It was reported that Audit Wales intended to publish an unqualified audit opinion on the accounts this year. It was explained that this was confirmed after the Board had submitted a Letter of Representation to Audit Wales based on the Statement of Accounts. The need for the Vice-chair and the Statutory Finance Officer to sign the letter and submit it to the auditors, was emphasised.

Attention was drawn to a correction identified within the auditors' Report (ISA260) in Appendix 3. It was confirmed that this was a change to the wording of the Statement of Accounts and it did not affect the financial information.

All officers from Audit Wales and Cyngor Gwynedd's Finance Department were thanked for their work of preparing the Statement of Accounts.

An enquiry was received about a table summarising payments and income between the North Wales Corporate Joint Committee, Local Authorities, Further and Higher Education Establishments for the 2023/24 financial year, detailing the monies owed from the Ambition Board to Wrexham University. In response to the enquiry, the Assistant Head of Finance confirmed that this payment owed to the University related to capital grant funding on one of the Ambition Board projects. Members were reminded that the information seen in the table summarised the information at the end of the financial year and that monies owed had been paid early in this financial year (2024/25).