Issue - meetings

(a)       That the final version of the Statement of Accounts 2011/12 be recommended to County Council;

(b)       That the reports from the Wales Audit Office be noted;

(c)        That the Letter of Representation - Flintshire County Council and Letter of Representation - Clwyd Pension Fund be recommended to County Council;

(d)       That the Corporate Finance Manager and Head of Corporate & Capital Accounting provide a separate response to Councillor Jones’ query on the increased amount for software licences; and

(e)       That Wales Audit Office colleagues share with Council officers the CIPFA model Accounts, together with other examples, at the closing Accounts meeting.

The Head of Finance and Corporate Finance Manager introduced the Statement of Accounts for 2011/12, together with the Wales Audit Office (WAO) report in connection with the audit of the 2011/12 financial statements for Flintshire County Council and the Clwyd Pension Fund.

The draft Accounts had been received by the Committee on 17 July 2012 when officers had responded to Members’ questions.  The remaining queries had been followed up by a written response, with no further queries received since that time.  Changes agreed with WAO colleagues during the course of the audit had been incorporated into the final Statement of Accounts to be presented to the County Council later in the day in order to meet the statutory approval deadline.

Mr. J. Herniman of WAO commented on the difficult task of producing a set of accounts that were easy to understand, whilst following the necessary requirements.  For both audits, the Council was required to provide a Letter of Representation to confirm that all necessary information had been disclosed and that the financial statements were accurate.

Audit of Financial Statements Report for Flintshire County Council 2011/12

It had been reported that whilst the audit work had been substantially complete, some areas of work remained outstanding due to a number of significant adjustments and delays in receiving information.  Mr. Herniman confirmed that this had been resolved and there were no further issues, additional to the report, which needed to be brought to the Committee’s attention.  He advised that although an unqualified opinion would be issued, a query on Communities First had been raised by a member of the public late in the process but prior to the audit sign-off.  As a result, the audit closure certificate could not be issued until the query had been investigated.

There were two uncorrected misstatements detailed in the report.  The first identified that a number of assets had not been depreciated appropriately which resulted in assets being overstated, and the second was an incorrect classification on the balance sheet between creditors and grants received in advance.  It was noted that although the auditor was required to raise these with the Committee, if the Committee chose not to correct them and included appropriate comment in the Letter of Representation, this would not change the audit opinion.

The Head of Finance said that the points raised by WAO had been accepted by management and would be dealt with accordingly for future years.  She explained that there had been a timing issue in deciding not to correct the two misstatements, due to audit work continuing late into the audit period; this left little time to correct any late issues raised at Audit within the time available.  The significant amount of work required in following through any corrections would have impacted on finalising the Statement of Accounts.

Councillor R.B. Jones said he hoped that the issue on fixed asset depreciation would be resolved with the introduction of the Technology Forge software.  On intangible assets, the Corporate Finance Manager and Head  ...  view the full minutes text for item 25