This report covers the delivery of audits for the 2023/24 audit of accounts in the period 1 April 2023 (the commencement date of the contract to deliver the 2023/24 audits) to 30 June 2025 (four months after the statutory backstop date of 28 February 2025).
It is our first report under the second appointing period which covers the audits from 2023/24 to 2027/28, and our sixth annual report under our appointing person responsibilities as set out in the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 (the Act) and Local Audit (Appointing Person) Regulations 2015 (the Regulations).
Under our Articles of Association we have a responsibility to “ensuring effective management of contracts with firms for the delivery of consistent, quality and effective audit services to relevant authorities.” This is alongside a duty under the Regulation 7(b) to design and implement appropriate systems to:
oversee issues of independence; and
monitor compliance against contractual obligations.
Our procurement in 2022 to award contracts for the delivery of audits for the second appointing period took place against the challenging backcloth of a troubled audit profession, a turbulent market and a local audit system that was facing unprecedented difficulties including large volumes of delayed audit opinions.
We entered into contracts of varying sizes with six audit firms (firms). We were pleased to retain the services of three existing firms, Grant Thornton (GT), Forvis Mazars (FM) and Ernst & Young (EY), to welcome former firm KPMG back to the market, and to be entering into contracts with two new firms, Bishop Fleming (BF) and Azets Audit Services (AZ).
Throughout the year we published quarterly data about the delivery of audit opinions and auditors’ use of additional powers to issue Statutory Reports such as Public Interest Reports and written recommendations and to determine objections of audits bought by local electors. As we approached the backstop date of 28 February 2025, we published firms’ forecasted opinion delivery.
