Agenda item

The Interim Head of Corporate Finance and the Director of Finance were in attendance for this item.  The key findings of the report were summarised and the Audit Committee was asked to note, and comment on the draft, unaudited, Statement of Accounts for 2021/22.

In response to Members questions the following points were raised:

1.      Bristol Beacon had received over £30m investment. In line with the valuation for the previous year and requirements of the CIPHA code, the Beacon was valued at zero within the accounts. Concern was raised that the further capital commitment planned with Wilmott Dixon would also need to be written off.

2.      The Annual Governance statement had shown a significant increase in procurement breaches in the year, the approach taken to remedy this had been covered in depth at the last meeting and included a number of recommendations such as training and e-learning. Bristol was unique to other authorities in that it was being open and transparent in its reporting and action was being taken to deliver improvements.  It was possible for Committee Members to request a separate session where more detail could be provided regarding the context and rationale for action planned to improve performance.

3.      There had been a significant increase in the number of Non-Schools employees receiving more than £50k remuneration for the year. It was confirmed that the number of employees had increased year on year and that the remuneration bands hadn’t been changed  and were subject to incremental progression.

4.      The total cost of exit packages had significantly increased to a million pounds compared £159k last year.  It was confirmed that this was in recognition of the succession planning policy of 21/22 where a number of colleagues planning an exit develop colleagues at lower grades.  Although not yet paid, provision was required to be made in the accounts from the point at which the decision to agree an exit was made.

5.      It was confirmed that the Interim Director Homes and Landlord Services remuneration of circa £281k included agency fees and in the first year of appointment a third party cost had applied.  The post was now a fixed term or permanent arrangement so a change would be reported in remuneration costs for future years.

6.      The Director of Adults Transformation had received circa £31k from February to March 2022.  It was confirmed that this had been an interim director level role to develop capacity and expedite transformational activity across the range of services in the adult social services department.

7.      Usable Reserves of £134k had been transferred out of the Risk Management Reserve.  Action: Officers to confirm the rationale for this.

8.      Indicators of Financial Stress show the Children Social Care Ratio at a lower risk.  It was confirmed that this was an indicator of a risk resilience index from a 19/20 data set which recorded a stable budget position in terms of the spend being able to be contained within budget and the percentage of overall budget committed.

9.      Contributions to reserves included Healthier Together funding for Integrated Care of £28.5m.  it was confirmed that Section 256 funding was received by all authorities at the end of the financial year for discharge to assess and went straight into Reserves.  The funding was committed to transformational activity to deliver tangible benefits for integrated NHS and social care services, to ensure hospitals were not blocked up and community support available and would be put to use in the current and next financial year.

10.  The Council had frozen rents last year collecting £113.8m in dwelling rent in 2020/21 having and was expecting to collect circa £127k in rents due to this years increase.

11.  The council housing valuation needs to be looked at each year in with formal valuation in October.   At the balance sheet date 31st march 2022 the valuation was £1.9B under the CIPHA code terms of valuation and would not necessarily be market price for those houses.

12.  It was noted that a number of the supporting documents provided were not searchable documents within the Modern Gov app including the narrative document and the Grant Thornton documents.  Action: Officers to provide documents in searchable format.

13.  Officers to confirm whether the reference to Government grant income received representing an increase of £91m from 2019/20 was correct at p39 of the agenda pack. Action Officers to check if the correct year was referenced or whether this should have been updated to the current year.

14.  There was a question over the stated increase of 10% in the number of children and young people with an Education Health Care (EHC) plan at January 2022 and the statistics relating to increases in complex cases at the end in 2020 and 2021.  Action Officers to check the detail

15.  It was confirmed that an announcement has been made at an LGA conference that the government may return to multi-year financial settlements in 23/24 and 24/25.

16.  It was confirmed that the Chief Executive received no pension payment due to personal choice.

17.  It would be useful to make it clear to the public that there was a good explanation why the Councils published financial information did not always track across different Committees as the information provided to Cabinet delivering in year updates would be different to final financial statements provided to Audit Committee due to the application of CIPHA codes and accounting standards requirements and the difference in treatment of Depreciation for example between cabinet and Audit.

Resolved: That the draft, unaudited, Statement of Accounts for 2021/22 be noted.