Issue - meetings

Report of Assistant Director of Finance (Section 151 Officer) 

Purpose of report

To ask the Committee to review and approve the Accounting Policies for inclusion in the 2024/25 Statement of Accounts which are due to be published by 30 June 2025. The council is required to set accounting policies which set out the specific principles, bases, conventions, rules, and practices applied by an authority in preparing and presenting financial statements.

Recommendations

The Accounts, Audit and Risk Committee resolves:

1.1     To approve the accounting policies as recommended by the Chief Finance Officer (Appendix 1).

Resolved

(1)        That the accounting policies as recommended by the Chief Finance Officer be approved.

The Assistant Director Finance submitted which asked the Committee to review and approve the Accounting Policies for inclusion in the 2024/25 Statement of Accounts which were due to be published by 30 June 2025. The Council was required to set accounting policies which set out the specific principles, bases, conventions, rules, and practices applied by an authority in preparing and presenting financial statements

In introducing the report, the Portfolio Holder for Finance, Property and Regeneration explained that the main change was the updated leasing section that reflected the new international financial reporting standard but this did not impact council tax payers. The new standard also required the Council to set a threshold of low value items that would not appear on the balance sheet, it was proposed that this should be set at £10K.

In response to a question regarding the transformation project currently being undertaken by the Council and how this might be impacted by local government reorganisation, the Committee was advised irrespective of any future changes to its structure, the Council still needed to set a balanced budget over the next three years.

Resolved

(1)        That the accounting policies as recommended by the Chief Finance Officer be approved.