Agenda item

The Committee considered a report of the Council’s External Auditors (Mazars) as a result of their audit of the Pension Fund’s accounts for the year ended 31 March 2020 (for copy see file of minutes).

Daniel Reay of Mazars presented the Audit Completion Report and provided an update of the report that was presented to the Pension Fund Committee in September.

Councillor Shuttleworth referred to Appendix B of the audit report which stated there was a risk that current valuations may be under or overstated in the accounts due to the effects of COVID-19. He commented that the risk of valuation of property investments had been underestimated as opposed to overestimated and should be reflected in the report. Daniel Reay explained that the report recognised the uncertainty in the market in general due to COVID-19, not necessarily one way or the other.

Responding to a query from Councillor Davinson regarding the internal controls recommendation regarding members declaration of interests, Daniel Reay advised that work carried out in that area looked at declaration forms signed by Pension Fund Committee Members and Audit Committee Members. It was reported there was a total of five instances of incomplete forms for 2019/20. It was recognised that processes would be improved to ensure all declaration of interests were received.

Resolved:

That

a)   the External Auditor’s report following the audit of the Statement of Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2020, including the summary of misstatements detailed in section 4 of the report, be noted;

b)   the content of the Management Representation letter (Appendix A), Auditors report on the Council’s Statement of Accounts (Appendix B) and the Consistency report to be included in the Pension Fund Annual report (Appendix C), be noted.