Agenda item

Report of those Charged with Governance (ISA 260)

Report of the External Auditor, Ernst and Young to follow.

Minutes:

5.1

Janet Dawson and Hayley Clark, External Audit, Ernst & Young (EY) were in attendance to answer any questions the Committee had. EY also provided the Committee with the Report of those Charged with Governance (ISA 260) which outlined the findings arising from the external audit to date.

 

5.2

Janet Dawson explained the status of the audit for 2020/21 was set out on page 5 of their report. Ernst & Young still had to finalise some areas but anticipated this would be completed over the coming weeks. The substantive amount of audit was already complete.

 

5.3

Once the audit was complete, Ernst & Young would then be in position to provide an unqualified opinion on the financial statements, subject to no further findings arising. Some of the unadjusted findings from the auditor’s report were then discussed.

 

5.4

Hayley Clark highlighted that EY had identified that there was a proportion of the Council’s investment property which the Council had the right to use which had not been accounted for as an asset. This was estimated to be between £1.8m and £3m.

 

5.5

It was mentioned that page 15 of their report, showed that the pension fund auditor had alerted EY to an unadjusted error of £9.7 million in relation to the return on investment assets within the financial statements of the South Yorkshire Pension Authority. The Council’s share of this, which would lead to a reduction in the Council’s pension liability, is £2.6 million.

 

5.6

Members of the Committee asked questions and the following responses were provided: -

 

5.7

Hayley Clark explained the £2.5m reported on page 16, had been identified in the previous year’s Audit Results Report. The decision taken last year was to not adjust at that time, and was considered as a miscalculation in PFI model. It was added that this had now been corrected in this year’s Audit Results Report.

 

5.8

RESOLVED: That the Committee (1) noted the report and its findings; and (2) granted delegated authority for the Chair to sign the Letter of Management Representations and the Statement of Accounts when final audit procedures are concluded.

 

 

Supporting documents: