04/10/2024 - Luton Council to raise formal accounting complaint

There has been a long-standing disagreement with EY over the closure the council’s 2018/19 accounts and we believe the report is not fair or balanced, is full of factual inaccuracies and particularly frustratingly fails to take into account the evidence that has been provided to the auditors on numerous occasions to counter the conclusions it makes.

There are two issues at the heart of the Public Interest Report:

Firstly, some historic challenges in the way the council used to procure social care services for those in need, which was identified by our own internal team in June 2020. This had been fully resolved by 2021, working closely with EY’s team, so the council cannot understand why it is forming part of a public interest report now. 

Secondly, there have been challenges in recruiting to a small number of specialised finance roles at the council amid a difficult recruitment market for both public and private sector organisations. For context we are talking about two roles in a team of 94 staff. And both of those roles have now been filled.  

Despite this, the council has worked extremely hard to stabilise our financial position amid extreme challenges over the last few years and delivered a balanced budget every year.

Councillor Rob Roche, Portfolio Holder for Finance, said: “We strongly believe that the decision of EY to publish a Public Interest Report is deeply flawed. 

“The report is damaging to our reputation and contradicts a recent government-commissioned independent assessment into our finances that concluded that the local authority is financially well-run.

“The report is not a fair or accurate reflection of the current position, and we are hugely disappointed given how hard we have worked to stabilise our financial position amid extreme challenges over the last few years, putting us in a stronger position than other authorities currently facing similar challenging circumstances.

“The basis of what EY has been saying has been in the public domain and discussed in great detail at various Audit Committees for nearly three years now. We have continually provided them with clear evidence to counter many of the points the report is making.

“We believe we are left with no choice but to raise a formal complaint with the ICAEW, not only because it is full of inaccuracies and ignores evidence we’ve provided, but because we owe it to our teams who have worked so hard to stabilise our finances over an extremely challenging few years for local government.”

The Public Interest report will be discussed at the council’s full council meeting on 15 October 2024. The report and our response are published on this page (item 10).