An account auditing scandal which led to Reading council having to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds has been remembered nearly 10 years on.
Since reforms introduced by the coalition government, councils have had to have their accounts checked by external auditors.
This was changed with the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014, which led to the closure of the Audit Commission in 2015.
Shortly afterwards, in 2016/17, issues with the council’s accounting led the external audit to cost around six times more than the original fee, which was meant to be £108,938.
The council ended up paying between £600,000 to £708,000 on external audit fees.
On top of that, late account closures from 2019/2020 to 2022/23 means that the cost of these audits is expected to be more than £1 million.
Reflections on the accounting issues were made as members of the council’s audit and governance closure of accounts for the 2024/25.
This included a report called the ‘annual governance statement’, giving a review of the accounting for that year.
Councillor Josh Williams (Green, Park), chair of the committee, said: “Some of the statements made would raise eyebrows.
“The document claims the council has a strong record of delivering services within budget, which implies we don’t use reserves.
“It also claims a strong track record of producing annual accounts within statutory deadlines, which I think is something we’re moving towards, not necessarily something of which this council has a strong track record.
“It contains some typos. It makes a comment on political leadership, which it determines to be strong. This isn’t the committee to debate whether or not political leadership in the administration is either strong or weak; we can do that elsewhere, but it’s fair to say my own views don’t align with the document.”
Reacting to that, cllr David Stevens (Labour, Abbey) said: “To suggest we had this long period where everything was a disaster is [not] quite right.
“We had a long period where, year after year, we had unqualified opinions, then we hit this storm.
“It all came in that particular year. To suggest our direction of travel is heading for disaster is unfair, and is not representative of what happened.
“And it was all over reporting, there was no hint of impropriety, fraud or irregularity, that was not the suggestion, it was simply that certain accounts were not maintained in the way the auditor wanted, and it was taking a lot of time and effort to present them in a certain way, and that’s what caused the problems.”
Cllr Stevens was the chair of the committee since its foundation in 2011.
At that time, he was a Conservative councillor, but defected to the Labour Party in 2022 and lost his place on the council during the all-out elections, ending his 18-year stint as a representative.
He was re-elected as a Labour councillor in 2024.
Cllr Finn McGoldrick (Labour, Norcot) also objected to cllr Williams’ opinions on the annual governance statement.
She said: “Just to clarify, I’m not sure the entire committee shares your concerns on presentation, so I don’t think it would be a fair reflection that the committee has taken a view on the report for next year.
Cllr Williams replied: “Oh no, quite, I was only expressing my opinion.”
Ultimately, councillors agreed to note the closure of the 2024/25 at the meeting on January 20, ahead them being reported at a full council meeting.
