Oakham Town Council External Audit cause for concern that relevant legislation and regulatory requirements have not been met. authority did not comply with Regulation 15 of the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015
Once again Oakham Town Council is issued with a poor audit report. It is pointless going on about the poor governance at Oakham Town Council because it appears most residents are happy to pay for it.
The town council does very little for our town at a very high price to the tax payers.
Members of the council appear to just rubber stamp anything put in front of them, totally ignoring their responsibilities and legal consequences.
The recent internal audit report flagged a long time issue of the council, the made up budget that often has no relevance to the actual spending of the council.
I sent the following to Oakham Town Council.
Audit report
Only one page has been published on the website (section three).
Can the council please explain why and why it is not on the notice boards?
It has to be one of the worse audit reports for a long time and the previous years was not much better and ignored by members.
2 External auditor report 2021/22
On the basis of our review of Sections 1 and 2 of the Annual Governance and Accountability Return (AGAR), in our opinion the information in Sections 1 and 2 of the AGAR is in accordance with Proper Practices and no other matters have come to our attention giving cause for concern that relevant legislation and regulatory requirements have not been met.
The AGAR was not accurately completed before submission for review.
• The figure in Box 10 for the comparative column should read £10,762 and the figure for box 10 in the current year should read £5,508
Why are members once again approving inaccurate returns?
Other matters not affecting our opinion which we draw to the attention of the authority: We note that the smaller authority did not comply with Regulation 15 of the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015 as it failed to make proper provision during the year 2022/23 for the exercise of public rights, since the period for the exercise of public rights did not include the first 10 working days of July. As a result, the smaller authority must answer ‘No’ to Assertion 4 of the Annual Governance Statement for 2022/23 and ensure that it makes proper provision for the exercise of public rights during 2023/24. The smaller authority has not provided: • an adequate explanation for the variance between the prior and current year values in Box 3 of Section 2 • a year end bank reconciliation in support of Section 2
I would like to ask Councillors who are representing me and other residents of Oakham why are you just rubber-stamping documents and accepting the figures put in front of them are correct?
Also why does the council employ two people who have weeks to get this correct?
The council spends a huge amount of money on account's software developed and sold buy a former parish clerk to make the work of any parish clerk easier.
This council does very little at a high cost to the residents of Oakham, I can't understand why two people can't between them follow basic audit regulations.
I also don't understand the constant failure to publish documents and my constant need to ask the council to publish them on the council's website.
I understand that two members are also Rutland County Councillor, would they accept this constant failure of regulations and governance at that level of Council?
From
Martin Brookes
