Agenda item

5.1

Dave Phillips, Head of Strategic Finance attended the meeting to present the report.

5.2

The purpose of the report was to provide Members of the Committee with a summary of the 2019-20 Unaudited Statement of Accounts and explain the core statements and a number of the key notes to the accounts.

5.3

A full set of the unaudited accounts was now available on the Council’s website and a full set of the final audited accounts would be presented to the Committee on 26^th November 2020.

5.4

The report also set out the approval process for the Statement of Accounts and the Audit and Standards Committee’s role in this process.  It was explained that The Accounts and Audit (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 had implemented new deadlines by amending the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015. 

5.5

The revised deadlines applicable to local authorities where as follows-

• No later than 31 August 2020-Unaudited accounts to be certified by the Executive Director of Resources,
• July-Oct 2020 – The Statement of Accounts was subject to audit by the Authority’s auditors, Ernst and Young, and their findings would be reported to the Committee in November 2020.  During this time there was a period where the public could inspect the accounts and related documents (Tuesday 1 September 2020 to Monday 12 October 2020)’
• No later than 30 November 2020 – Accounts to be re-certified by the Executive Director of Resources,
• No later than 30 November 2020 – The Committee would consider and approve the Statement of Accounts’
• No later than 30 November 2020 – Publish on the Council’s website along with any certificate, opinion or report issued by the auditor.

5.6

Dave Phillips, Head of Strategic Finance advised that the Council’s position was satisfactory and an underspend had been reported. It was advised that the cost of Covid was currently over £80m, but this impacted mainly from 2020/21 onwards, not 2019/20, but the pressures on the Council going forward were great.

5.7

It had been a challenging time pulling the accounts together from home, however the team had managed to get the accounts ready at the beginning of July.

5.8

Ruth Matheson, Finance Manager, advised the Committee that the Members would be given a first look at the accounts to review and ask questions, subject to the external audit by Ernst and Young.  Training would be offered to Members and Officers would also provide some assistance.

5.9

Members asked questions around the officers’ remuneration note and could the rise in pay be explained.

5.10

Dave Phillips advised that this was cumulative impact of annual pay rises of up to 2% that had been given in the last few years, and these rises had an effect on the staff pay banding increments.  It was confirmed that the increases were not the result of additional senior  staff being employed.  Councillor Josie Paszek requested that an explanatory note be added to the report to explain this.

5.11

Councillor Clement-Jones asked for confirmation whether the pandemic had impacted upon the Council’s reserves.

5.12

Dave Phillips explained that the Council’s reserves were likely to be adversely impacted by the costs of Covid, but that available reserves were sufficient to meet the impact in the short-term.  However in the medium term, if further Central Government support for Covid costs and lost income was not forthcoming, then the Council’s financial position would become very challenging.

5.13

Councillor Angela Argenzio requested that an explanation be supplied behind the movements of the surpluses and adjustments that were shown at Appendix 5-Expenditure and Funding Analysis Statement.  Dave Phillips advised that this would be supplied.

5.14

Councillor Mohammed Mahroof commented on the high salaries of the Chief Executive and Executive Directors.  It was suggested that the Council benchmarked with other local authorities to see where Sheffield was at in terms of chief officer salaries.  Councillor Mahroof asked how many officers from the BAME community were in the top pay brackets and requested that this information be shown in the report.  Gillian Duckworth, Director of Legal and Governance explained that information relating to BAME would be found in the Council’s performance monitoring reporting which did not currently get reported to the Audit and Standards Committee, however the Committee could be provided with this if necessary.

5.15

RESOLVED: that, (1) The Audit and Standards Committee notes the core statements and the key notes to the Unaudited Statement of Accounts for 2019/20 and,

(2) independent training be provided to the Committee.