Earlier Andy Carter Warrington South MP had a very helpful meeting with Secretary of State for The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Michael Gove to discuss Council borrowing and the process for auditing local authority accounts.
Warrington Borough Council’s external auditor has recently advised that delays in the receipt of data from the Council mean than the long outstanding 2018/19 audit of the statutory accounts was now in danger of not being completed at all.
This would create almost six years of unaudited figures for a Council who in that time have racked up £1.8Bn of debt and a string of highly questionable or failed investments.
Andy asked the Minister to take urgent action to ensure that there is sufficient scrutiny through the external audit procedures so that local residents can have confidence that public money spent by the Borough Council is being accounted for in a lawful way.
Following the independent CIPFA report into the Council’s borrowing for investment Andy is keen to ensure that recommendations are followed through fully.
