More than 900 local authority audit opinions are outstanding and the government must take urgent action to clear the swelling backlog, Public Sector Audit Appointments has said.
Qualified opinions on historical council accounts are likely if the government waives some reporting requirements as it strives for a “system reset”, which it currently plans to do, a senior civil...
Any hope of sustainably clearing the huge backlog in local government audit will fail unless the underlying issue of audit resources is fixed, a committee of MPs has said.
The high-profile failures of councils in Woking and Thurrock demonstrate the importance of a strong and well-understood local audit system, which has arguably been lost, two senior voices in the...
MPs heard that local audit needs a fresh start to clear the backlog and return to timely account sign-off, but were warned that such a move would be risky.
The huge backlog of unaudited local government accounts has ramifications across government, including for entire departments and the NHS, the head of the NAO has warned.
More needs to be done to make auditing an attractive and prestigious profession, and councils stand to benefit hugely if that is achieved, MPs have heard.
Low capacity in council finance teams and the failure to deal with historic accounting issues mean the current September audit deadline is unlikely to be met, local auditors Grant Thornton have...
A further delay to adopting local authority reporting regulations relating to investments is welcome, but the rules need to come into force at some point to avoid undermining transparency, CIPFA has...
Accountants have warned that progress on local audit reforms will stall without further improvements to the audit market and capacity in council finance teams.
A proposed temporary override to financial reporting on councils’ infrastructure has been welcomed by the sector as an opportunity to take a step back and sort out one of the major problems facing...
Local audit firms have been told by the Financial Reporting Council to “urgently” improve the quality and timeliness of their work, after the number of unacceptable audits rose last year.
Failures in the local audit market are leading to “increasingly incomplete and unreliable” data in central government reporting with councils left in the dark over spending decisions, the Public...
Panellists at Public Finance Live agreed something needs to change to speed up audit opinions being issued on council accounts, but were unsure whether giving auditors a statutory deadline is the...
Organisations need to take decisive action to improve the scope and role of internal audit, to avoid weakening risk-management and oversight, says Diana Melville.
The government is set to make it a statutory requirement for councils in England to have independent members on audit committees as part of local audit reforms.
A lack of funding for staff development and challenges around the recruitment of new officers is preventing the internal audit function from reaching its full potential, according to a CIPFA report.
