Agenda and minutes

To receive apologies for absence.

Apologies for absence were received from Cllrs Jan Floyd-Douglass and Michaela Gray.

To receive from Members, declarations of interests in relation to any items included on the Agenda for this meeting, in accordance with the Waverley Code of Local Government Conduct.

There were no disclosure of interests submitted for this meeting.

The Chairman to respond to any questions received from members of the public of which notice has been duly given in accordance with Procedure Rule 10.

There were none.

The Chairman to respond to any questions received from Members in accordance with Procedure Rule 11.

There were none.

To consider Grant Thornton’s updated Audit Findings report (to follow)

Graeme Clark, Strategic Director, reminded Members that at the meeting held on 14^th September 2020 it was RESOLVED that delegated authority be given to the Strategic Director (s151 Officer) in consultation with the Chairman of the Audit Committee to consider any changes to the External Audit Findings Report and, if satisfied with the report to make any necessary amendments to the Accounts and/or Letter of Representation, and subject to this:

(i)            Approved the Statement of Accounts for the financial year ended 31 March 2020;

(ii)           Approved the Letter of Representation for 2019/2020; and

(iii)          Confirmed that the accounts had been prepared on a going concern basis.

However, due to the changes identified by the auditor, the Strategic Director felt it was not appropriate to sign off the report without bringing it back to the committee.

This meeting was to go through the changes only as the rest had already been agreed. It was noted that the Letter of Representation and Annual Governance Statement had not changed materially other than the date would need amending.

Jon Roberts and Mark Bartlett of Grant Thornton went through the amendments (in red for ease of reading).  They advised that the key changes were around property valuations, indexation of council dwellings and leisure centre valuations due to Covid.

Additional recommendations had been identified around audit adjustments and unadjusted misstatements.

Members raised questions around the leisure centre valuations as they appeared to have changed considerably from previous years.  It was explained that the main confusion was around Cranleigh leisure centre where there was a mistaken presumption about the life of the building which had now been rectified. It was agreed that there had been some judgements made on the useful life of these buildings and there was more work to do before the 2020/21 audit.

The Audit Committee RECEIVED the revised Audit Findings Report.

To consider changes to the 2019/20 Accounts (to follow)

The Committee noted the amendments to the 2019/20 Accounts as identified from the Audit Findings Report item.

The Committee:

1.    APPROVED  the amended statement of Accounts ending 30th March 2020;

2.    NOTED and AGREED the exclusion of the unadjusted misstatements identified in the Audit Findings Report; and

3.    AGREED the required amendments to the Letter of Representation to reflect the unadjusted misstatements.

To consider the following recommendation on the motion of the Chairman:

Recommendation

That pursuant to Procedure Rule 20 and in accordance with Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the press and public be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the following item(s) on the grounds that it is likely, in view of the nature of the business to be transacted or the nature of the proceedings, that if members of the public were present during the item(s), there would be disclosure to them of exempt information (as defined by Section 1001 of the Act) of the description specified in the appropriate paragraph(s) of the revised Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972 (to be identified at the meeting).

There were no items to discuss in exempt session so the Chairman closed the meeting.