Agenda item

7.1

7.2

7.3

7.4

7.5

7.6

7.7

7.8

The Head of Strategic Finance, Dave Phillips, submitted a report to provide members of the Committee with a summary of the 2020/21 Unaudited Statement of Accounts and an explanation of the core statements and key notes to the accounts.

The Head of Strategic Finance asked Members of the Committee to review the accounts over the next few months and get back to him with any questions or areas of concern. The Head of Strategic Finance added that various training courses were available to help members understand the accounts.

The Head of Strategic Finance informed the Committee that the external auditors had already began reviewing the accounts, which would carry on over the next few months and would report back in early September.

Members of the Committee asked questions and the key points to note were-

Councillor Angela Argenzio referred to page 46 of the report and asked why there was such a difference in expenditure between the two previous financial years? The Finance Manager, added that on page 43 of the report, looking at gross income and expenditure, there had been a big drop and various movements within the figures. It was advised that the differences within the expenditure were due to the impact of covid, especially on adult social care and children’s services.

Councillor Mohammed Mahroof highlighted that there was a high number of staff earning over £50,000 a year within the authority, and he wanted information on how many of these were from the BAME community, and whether these figures could be incorporated into the Statement of Accounts? Eugene Walker, Executive Director of Resources advised that he would take this away and speak to Human Resources regarding the figures, as he believed that this information was reported elsewhere.

The Chair of the Committee highlighted the short-term debtor and short-term creditor figures and asked what had caused the figures to increase from 2019/20 to 2020/21. The Finance Manager, responded by explaining the short-term debtor figures had increased as part of the business rate debtor in which retail were owed from central government. The reasoning for the short-term creditor figure to increase was due to external funding being increased by creditors as well as the business rate relief grant playing a factor.

RESOLVED: - that the Committee notes the core statements and the key notes to the Statement of Accounts for 2020-21.