24 November (Part 2) - £5·8 million. 5% of revenue at risk. “No material effect”
You may not have noticed his absence but I certainly have. My friend Nicholas Dowling who managed to put
councillor Cheryl Bacon on the end of a criminal investigation
with a clapped out tape recorder has faded from the Bexley bashing scene. The
fact is he found a lady willing to marry him a couple of years ago and for the
past three or four months his time has been fully occupied by nappies and bath times.
Without him I have floundered somewhat with audits and accounts.
However as luck would have it another accountant has surfaced anxious to
demonstrate that Bexley’s statements are not as boring as you might believe - but
twice as untrustworthy. I’ve decided that carving his letter up into small blocks is
probably too much like hard work and may detract from the message. So what follows is
pretty much as it was given to me. Even for me it wasn’t too difficult to follow.
Dear Bexley is Bonkers,
I have been an avid follower for quite a while now and having read some of your
blogs about the shambolic state of affairs surrounding the auditing of Bexley
council’s accounts I felt compelled to investigate further. Thank you
for highlighting the issue and I thought you might appreciate my
research and musings around what is surely a new nadir for this rotten borough
that we all live in.
Rest assured it did not take long to establish that you have been accurately
reporting shenanigans of the highest order at Bexley council where it is clearly
evident that senior council officers have been conniving – with the undoubted
assistance of our piss poor directly elected representatives - to keep the truth
out of the public eye regarding the shambolic behaviour displayed in this affair.
So
let me start with a quote from Bexley council’s website where you can find the following upstanding and proper claim:
“the audited Statement of Accounts is then approved by the council's
Audit Committee by the end of September following the end of the financial year”.
(Click image for source.)
Well, given that the
council’s Audit Committee approved the 2013-14 accounts
without a full audit having been completed what does that say about the
integrity and probity of our glorious council in operation?
Perhaps your readers might be interested in a game of spot the difference:
Approval of the Accounts
I certify that the Statement of Accounts for 2013/14 has been approved by
resolution of the Audit Committee of the London Borough of Bexley.
Councillor Joseph Pollard, Chairman, Audit Committee 24 September 2014
Approval of the Accounts
I certify that the Statement of Accounts for 2012/13 has been approved by
resolution of the General Purposes Committee of the London Borough of Bexley in
accordance with the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2011.
Councillor Lucia-Hennis, Chairman, General Purposes Committee 26 September 2013
Evidently Bexley council can no longer claim that it is adhering to the Accounts
and Audit Regulations. Do they have no shame?
I
genuinely wonder how many accountants we are paying to make sure that everything is above
board and fully compliant in our borough? Not enough it would appear as this is failure on a grand scale.
A private company that could not claim to have their accounts fully
audited would not thrive for very long; additionally, it would have a great deal of explaining to do too.
Oh, it is just all so different in the world of Local Government. No statement
of explanation is proffered and everybody just seems to ignore the calamity and
carries on regardless. Well done one and all. Clearly Bexley council is relying on a
disinterested public but this failure to be fully audited is plainly borderline
incompetent behaviour and ignoring this fact is such an ostrich like mentality
that is truly outmoded and not acceptable in the 21st century. Bexley residents deserve so much better.
Politicians of all stripes are forever soul searching and wondering how they can
restore the electorate’s faith in them. Well, let me tell you it is just this
sort of dishonesty and deviousness that they need to root out. It is just not
acceptable to normal people that those who are in power and elected to look
after our affairs can so willfully abrogate their responsibility and attempt to
duck the truth whilst espousing openness and transparency as their modus operandi.
Bexley council has 132 pages of accounts
http://www.bexley.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=13945&p=0
and only on the final page are we informed by Susan M. Exton Director of Grant Thornton
(the council’s auditors).
Delay in certification of completion of the audit
We cannot formally conclude the audit and issue an audit certificate until we
have completed our consideration of matters brought to our attention by local
authority elector. We are satisfied that these matters do not have a material
effect on the financial statements or a significant impact on our value for
money conclusion.
What
a shame that no precise definition of a material effect is provided. I mean
with a budget of £180 million what’s a million or two? 1% or so and probably not
very material to an auditor but this is a heck of a lot of council tax to local residents.
132 pages and nobody in Bexley’s accounts wants to explain to local residents
why the auditors cannot complete their audit. So, does anybody seem to care
about this state of affairs at Bexley council? Of course they don’t! I mean to
them it is all about reputational damage limitation (or some such management
gobble de gook) the openness and transparency is expediently ditched by these dishonourable types who hide the truth in the public domain whilst not pointing
it out to anyone.
A reasonable person might see this underhand behaviour as
prevarication and diversion of the highest order; and the rationale is to
maintain the fiction that Bexley council can claim it is doing the right thing
whilst actually doing completely the opposite. Such, I am afraid, is the truly
sad state of affairs here in Bexley and, I assume, is all masterminded and
implemented by the dubious duo of Will Tuckley and Teresa O’Neill.
On the other hand, surely we can rely on Bexley’s much trumpeted overview and
scrutiny to get to the bottom of things in relation to this matter. From the
quote above we know there was an Audit Committee meeting that discussed the
accounts so they must have probed the matter?
Er, perhaps not. You can read the draft minutes here
http://democracy.bexley.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=159&MId=27612
but the relevant part is:
Ms. Exton also reported that a possible objection to the accounts had recently
been received which she would need to consider before deciding whether she
needed to issue a formal report. When asked about the potential additional
cost, Ms. Exton reported that the last time there was an objection to the
accounts it resulted in additional audit fees of £18,000.
So, the committee knew precisely that there was a problem with the audit but
rather than establish what the problem was and discuss if anything needed to be
addressed or investigated by council officers all the committee was interested
in was what the extra cost of the audit would be.
What sort of scrutiny was employed here? Looks like the three wise monkeys’ approach to me
and resulted in absolutely none at all. Unfortunately once again our political representatives
failed in their democratic duty to hold Bexley council to account. A deliberate ploy, or plain incompetence?
The cost question must have been a deliberate
deflection by the Tories but why nobody wanted to delve into the provenance of
the matter itself beggars belief and really highlights the bankrupt and
pointless nature of these committees. Still they serve their fig leaf purpose so
undoubtedly they will continue to be proffered as the preferred choice of the
dominant one party political machine here in Bexley. After all, Teresa & Will,
if you want to maintain the corrupt and dishonest status quo at Bexley council,
just carry on precisely as you have before.
Thank heavens for the fresh and relevant perspective that Bexley is Bonkers
offers otherwise nobody would truly scrutinise this useless bunch. Keep up the great work.
Thanks. Nice not to have to spend too long on a feature like that. I think their £18,000
minimum audit fee is going to be the least of the audit committee’s worries once
the penny drops. or in this case maybe more than half a billion pennies.