Scottish Borders Council

Agenda item

External Auditors' Annual Audit Reports 2020/21

Consider the Annual Audit Reports from the External Auditor on various entities for review and scrutiny prior to Council approval.   (Copies attached).

Minutes:

4.1       With reference to paragraph 6.1 of the Minute of 22 October 2020, there had been circulated copies of covering letters and a report by Audit Scotland, the Council’s external auditors.   The report explained that Audit Scotland had now completed the audit of the Council’s Annual Accounts for 2020/21 and Ms Woolman anticipated issuing an unmodified audit opinion in all cases.  Ms Woolman advised that the financial statement gave a true and fair view. There were no unadjusted misstatements or material weaknesses in the accounting and internal control systems identified during the audit.  The Committee confirmed that they knew of new issues or any concerns with regard to fraud or non-compliance.

 

4.2         A number of questions were raised which were answered by officers.  Regarding financial misstatements, Mrs Woolman explained that the audit aggregated all amounts, credits and debts to assess whether the approach to the audit was correct.  Regarding cyber security accreditation, the Chief Officer Audit & Risk advised that elements were monitored through the Officers Information Governance Group which looked at PSN accreditation and that would be captured in the Internal Audit review of Information Governance. An assessment of this would be presented to the Committee in March 2022.  A webinar was due to be held the following week which would share lessons learned from the cyber-attack on SEPA.  Regarding £27m of Covid relief funds provided by the Scottish Government, Mr Robertson explained that Scottish Borders Council had used £11.3m of the funding to ensure the continuation of essential services and had retained £15.7m in reserves.  Those reserves continued to be drawn down and deployed to meet Covid related challenges as they arose, and would continue to be used as such.  With regard to inconsistencies in Educational Maintenance Allowance record keeping, Mr Haseeb advised that as there had been sufficient improvements in record keeping compared to the prior year as a result of the work undertaken across the Council to address the recommendation in last year’s annual audit report, no further recommendation was being made.  As further work was still being carried out to address this that would be monitored.  In response to a question regarding £34m made available to CGI, Mr Robertson clarified that the sum referred to was in fact the future transformation projects budget, earmarked to harness new technologies to adapt to the changing way customers interact with the Council.  With regard to medium and long term financial planning, Mrs Woolman acknowledged that whilst accurate long term planning was challenging, the Council had an obligation to proceed with caution.  Mr Robertson added that the Council had first adopted its current approach to long term planning in 2013/14. He noted that transforming services took time and highlighted the Council’s good track record in the area.  Regarding S.106 charities, Mr Robertson explained that discussions had taken place with the Education Department regarding work to consolidate a significant number of education trusts into the SB Education charity.  It had been agreed that the Education department had to lead the substantial piece of consultation work required before the technical process to consolidate the trusts could be undertaken led by Finance and Legal Services.   In regard to National Fraud Initiative (NFI) matches, Mrs Woolman explained that whilst the current timescale matched to the 2 year NFI programme, an alternative timescale could be followed. Mrs Stacey added that if resources were available work would be undertaken before the end of the year.

 

DECISION

NOTED the Annual Reports from the Council’s External Auditors prior to Council approval.

 

Supporting documents:

 

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