Lindsey Village Website
2019-2020
Due to COVID-19, the National Association of Local Councils (NALC) engaged with the government around local council audit time frames for audit for the year 2019-2020. Final regulations were published on 7 April and will come into force on 30 April. These extend the statutory audit deadlines for 2019/20. For the year 2019-2020, Council had a duty to comply with The Accounts and Audit (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 as well as the legislation listed at the beginning of this section.
Statutory dates that have been amended are:
This means that draft accounts must be approved by 31 August 2020 at the latest or maybe approved earlier where possible.
Authorities must publish the dates of their public inspection period this year, and the government recommends that they provide public notice on their websites (where available) when the public inspection period would usually commence, explaining why they are departing from normal practice for 2020.
At the meeting of 21 May 2020, Lindsey Parish Council declared itself eligible to consider itself as an exempt authority. Arrangements will made for the Certificate of Exemption to be signed thereby exempting it from a limited assurance review.
As in the previous year, the Parish Council, as a smaller authority is eligible to exempt itself from having a limited assurance review of its accounts as conducted by an (appointed) external auditor. There is no change to the requirement for all smaller authorities to complete and approve an Annual Return, now known as the Annual Governance and Accountability Return (AGAR), and to provide for public rights and the Parish Council as an exempt authority must meet a number of specified criteria to enable it to only submit a copy of its exemption certificate to the appointed external auditor.
In accordance with the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015, the Local Audit (Smaller Authorities) Regulations 2015 and the Transparency Code for Smaller Authorities there is a requirement to publish a number of documents on a public website - all of which are available to download direct from this website:
In accordance with The Accounts and Audit (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 the accounting records for the financial year ending 31 March 2020, (which includes all books, deeds, contracts, bills, vouchers, receipts and other documents relating to those records) will be made available for inspection by any person interested, during a period of 30 working days set by the smaller authority. To give local councils more flexibility, the requirement for the public inspection period to include the first 10 working days of July has been removed. Instead, local councils must commence the public inspection period on or before the first working day of September 2020. The period set by the Responsible Financial Officer for Lindsey for inspection for the year ending 31 March 2020 will cover the period Monday 15 June 2020 to Friday 24 July 2020 inclusive.
For full details of the dates set for Lindsey please use this link to download the details which will also include an article on: Local Authority Accounts: A Summary of Your Rights. For a copy of the detailed guide produced by the National Audit Office 'Local authority accounts: a guide to your rights' please click here to download the guide.
