Issue - meetings

Officers had submitted a report advising the Committee of the progress to date in preparing for the closure of the 2016/17 Accounts.

As previously advised the statutory deadline for having the accounts available for audit had been brought forward. Furthermore, the amount of time available to the auditors to complete their assurance work was being reduced by a third. The changes are summarised below.

The Committee were advised that in order to speed up the year-end closedown process, it would be necessary to introduce a greater level of estimation to finalise the year end position. This might apply to a number of activities but would certainly include requesting data earlier from external partners relating to:

·                     The valuation of  Assets including Property Plant and Equipment, and Infrastructure assets to determine for example, impairment charges; and

·                     The valuation of year end pension liabilities from Pension Fund actuaries.

Preparations for earlier closure had commenced in 2015/16 by bringing forward timetable deadlines for Services. With exceptions, Services had achieved the earlier deadlines; in particular, schools data had been consolidated into the accounts ahead of the timetable, and the Pension Fund accounts had been available by the end of May.

As previously reported this gain had been lost due to:

·                   the launch of the finance transformation review in April 2016 which had led to resources being re-directed to that process at key points in the closedown programme, and

·                   a delay in the Capital closedown programme as a consequence of additional testing requirements associated with an upgrade in the Asset Register and staff vacancies in the capital accounting team. Capital remained the most complex year end procedure and had a major impact on the financial statements.

Officers advised that in addition to bringing forward the timetable, there were a number of further risks arising from the need to embed recent Service reviews.

Finance had undergone a major restructure involving staff from Bexley, Havering and Newham Councils.  The new structure had been completed in December 2016 and went live on 9^th January 2017. Interim arrangements were being implemented to cover posts currently not filled. Closure of the 2016/17 accounts was being managed by the interim oneSource Chief Accountant across the three authorities reporting to the Head of Finance (Financial Control and Corporate Business Systems) and handover arrangements were in place to support the preparation of the 2016/17 accounts.

The auditors, Ernst and Young, were aware of the changes in management structure, and would be meeting with both the outgoing Head of Corporate Finance, and Head of Finance as part of handover arrangements.

The Collection Fund impacted on all of the prime statements. In 2015/16 there had been a delay in receiving NNDR data and if other deadlines could be met for 2016/17, any delay in the availability of Collection Fund data could have a detrimental impact on the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 28