Issue - meetings

(a)       That the draft Statement of Accounts 2011/12 (including the Annual Governance Statement), together with the underlying policies, be noted; and

(b)       That the planned provision of ‘drop-in’ sessions over the summer period, subject to Members’ consideration at Audit Committee, be noted.

The Head of Finance introduced a report to present the Statement of Accounts 2011/12 (subject to audit) for Members’ information only at this stage.  The accounts would come back to the Committee in late September for approval and recommendation to County Council following the audit.  She said that this had been the culmination of work across the whole of the organisation and referred to challenges due to changes in regulations.  At today’s meeting, the Wales Audit Office (WAO) was represented by Huw Lloyd Jones whose remit related to performance assessment; however the work on the financial audit would be led by  Amanda Hughes and colleagues who had already started on the audit work.

The Corporate Finance Manager and Finance Manager (Strategy & Technical) delivered a presentation which detailed the main points:

·         Purpose and Background

·         Key Dates

·         Responsibility

·         Contents and Overview

·         Links to budget monitoring

·         Headlines

·         Core Statements

·         Next Steps

·         Questions

The Finance Manager (Strategy & Technical) said that in line with previous practice, drop-in sessions for Members would be arranged for early September 2012 and she reported on the links between the pages of the accounts and changes in the Code of Practice.

The Head of Finance said that officers had endeavoured to link the regulatory nature of presenting the accounts in accordance with legislation with strategic internal budget monitoring and final budget monitoring reporting to make the information as useful as possible for members.  She referred to a new note on exit packages and explained that reports were regularly received by Cabinet and Overview & Scrutiny on retirements and redundancies dealt with under the Council’s policies.

Mr. Huw Lloyd Jones of WAO gave information on his role as manager for performance audits across the six North Wales Authorities, with Karen Lees the contact for Flintshire.  He also reported on the performance audit work mentioned on the WAO Regulatory Programme which aimed to ensure that the Council was providing value for money.  The Chief Executive explained that Mr Lloyd Jones had replaced Mr Stephen Martin who had previously attended meetings of the Committee.

Councillor R.B. Jones referred to the underspend figure on page 2 of the draft accounts which, when reported to the Corporate Resources Overview & Scrutiny Committee, had been split to show an underspend of £1.287M from Directorate services and £1.548M from Corporate Finance.  He also queried why the joint arrangements listed on page 69 did not include the Regional School Effectiveness & Improvement Service and Regional Commissioning Hub.  On the first question, the Corporate Finance Manager explained that the figure in the draft accounts was in respect of the Central Loans and Investment Account only and agreed to provide Councillor Jones with a reconciliation of the figure contained within the final outturn monitoring report..  On joint arrangements, he explained that this was a timing issue as the report had stated the Council’s position at 31 March 2012.  The Chief Executive commented on the current status of transition of the two collaborative projects which would be included in the following year’s accounts.

In  ...  view the full minutes text for item 17