Issue - meetings

13.30

Report from the Director for Finance

PLEASE NOTE THE APPENDIX TO THIS DOCUMENT WILL BE CIRCULATED AS AN ADDENDUM TO THE AGENDA.

As the body identified as 'Those Charged with Governance' within the Council, The Audit and Governance Committee is responsible for signing the Statement of Accounts at the meeting of the committee in July.

This report sets out the Council's Significant Accounting Policies for 2018/19, as selected and approved by the Director of Finance.  The CIPFA/LASAAC Code of Practice on Local Authority Accounting in the United Kingdom defines Accounting Policies as ‘the specific principles, bases, conventions, rules and practices applied by an authority in preparing and presenting financial statements’.  The accounting policies describe how the Council has interpreted and applied the code and form the basis of the preparation of the accounts.

The report also sets out the approach to the Narrative Report for inclusion in the 2018/19 Statement of Accounts, including the content of the Narrative Report and the approval process before the draft Statement of Accounts is published for Public Inspection on 31 May 2019. 

The Committee is RECOMMENDED to

a)            note the report;

b)           ratify the accounting policies as approved by the Chief Finance Officer and included as an appendix to this report; and

c)            note the content and timetable for the 2018/19 narrative report.

Recommendations agreed.

The report was introduced by Hannah Doney.  The new format for the Notes to the Core Financial Statements is designed to be better for computer screens which is how most people view the document now.  The notes cover just 11 pages this year compared to 18 last year as part of the policy to make it more accessible.

Members raised a number of issues and Hannah Doney responded as follows:

·         The £2,000 de minimis for schools local capital spend has not changed in the last few years though these figures are reviewed each year.

·         The notes apply to the current financial year (2019/20).

·         Cash bonds do not appear in reserves because they are not the Council’s money but there is a matching liability.  The auditors are content with the way cash bonds are treated in the accounts.

The Narrative Statement will be circulated to the Members of the Committee in draft form on 17 May 2019 and they will have seven days to respond.

RESOLVED: to

a)           note the report;

b)           ratify the accounting policies as approved by the Chief Finance Officer and included as an appendix to this report; and

c)            note the content and timetable for the 2018/19 narrative report.