Decision - Unaudited Statement of Accounts 2012/13

10.1         The Committee considered a report of the Executive Director of Finance & Resources in relation to the 2012/13 Statement of Accounts. Under the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2011, the Council’s Statement of Accounts were to be approved by the Chief Finance Officer by 30 June and following the audit process are to be approved by Members by 30 September each year. Under the Council’s constitution, the Audit & Standards Committee was charged with this responsibility. The report presented the unaudited Statement of Accounts for 2012/13 for information purposes only. Copies of the Statement of Accounts were made available to Members of the Committee - at that stage the accounts had not been audited by the external auditor. It was expected that the external auditor would present an Annual Governance Report to the September meeting of the Committee on the conclusion of the audit of the 2012/13 financial statements. An accompanying Officer report would be presented to that meeting, to enable Members to consider and approve the statement of accounts.

10.2         Councillor Hamilton requested that some of the wording in relation to the creation of the unitary authority in 1997 be amended to better reflect the arrangements.

10.3         Dr Horne noted how useful it was the have the explanatory notes with the accounts, and went on to ask about pension liability and debtors and credit control. In response the Executive Director of Finance & Resources explained that in relation to the pension fund the Council was required to provide a ‘snapshot’ at the balance sheet date of the overall deficit of the life of the fund. The recent increase of the deficit was acknowledged, and this change this could be attributed to a range of factors; the Council still had to fund the ongoing liability, and the budget projections for 2014/15 were expected to adjust contributions to address this. There were also other national changes – such as asking employees to make higher contributions – that were expected to help offset this increase and there was an element of pay provision in the medium term financial plan to deal with this. Officers had also assessed the increase in debtors and found there had been no change in policy, instead the figures for 2011/12 had been unusually low, and this was backed up by trends from the previous four years. The Executive Director also discussed property leases and timing of debts raised impacting on the level of provision required and noted there was no concern about the ability of the authority to collect rents.

10.4         RESOLVED – That the Committee note the Statement of Accounts for 2012/13 and note that these are subject to audit.