Lewes District Council let down by external auditors

The Chair of Lewes District Council's Audit and Governance Committee has described the service received from external auditors Deloitte as 'deeply disappointing' and called on the new government to rethink how the public sectors audits are carried out.

The delays are so great that the Council is still waiting for the audit of the 2019/2020 accounts to be completed and hundreds of other authorities are in similar positions.  

Councillor Stephen Gauntlett, Chair of Audit and Governance Committee at Lewes District Council, said:

"There is no other way to describe it, we have been failed by our external auditors and the new government must act to change a system that is clearly broken.

"It was reported in national media very recently that only 1% of local government accounts were audited on time last year, with almost 800 accounts waiting for an audit opinion.

"The service we have received from Deloitte is deeply disappointing and characterised by missed deadlines and assurances that came to nothing."

The Audit Commission used to audit council accounts and delays were minimal, but the body was abolished by the Government in 2012. Deloitte has now removed itself from the local government audit market.

Councillor Gauntlett added:

"To clear the backlog, the outgoing government recently proposed to wrap up of all the outstanding audits by publishing them unaudited, but with the general election the legislation wasn't passed.

"While the situation is a mess, I am encouraged by the support we have so far received from our new auditors and hope we can now move forward quickly and get all the outstanding work completed as soon as possible."

More ways to receive our news

• Keep me posted. Sign up to receive news and alerts from Lewes council by email
• Read District News - our council newspaper
• Our Social media