2021-03-31-accounts

LISS PARISH COUNCIL

– LISS RECREATION GROUND CHARITY REGISTRATION NUMBER 301871

TRUSTEES REPORT FOR 2020/21

The accounts for the 2020/21 financial year were audited by Lightatouch, the appointed auditors, on 31[st] January 2022 and approved at the Liss Parish Council meeting on 21[st] March 2022.

During the year under review the Covid pandemic meant that rentals could not continue which has reduced income, however government Covid grant has brought in extra monies.

Running costs were lower as requirements were naturally lower due to Covid. Some operational costs were only applied part way through the year and some necessary maintenance was not carried out due to Covid restrictions to the end of March 2021.

Approved at Liss Parish Council on 21[st] March 2022.

Signed: ..........................

Name: K Budden

Position: Chair of Liss Parish Council

Year to 3/31/2020 £ 405.75 11000.00 25.00 1000.00 12111.77 0.00 24500.00 1.44 12430.75 36613.21	Liss Recreation Ground Account- Charity reg. No.301871 Income Rentals (Rec) LPC Grant (Rec) Wayleaves HPFA Grant Rentals (Pavilion) Covid support grants LPC Grant (Pavilion) Interest Total Income Rec Total Income Pavilion Expenditure Rec West Liss Hedges Sundries (Field maintenance) Contribution towards tractor/repairs/ins.etc Tree surgery Groundsman's allocation of time for year contract grass cutting Rec ground staf costs Pavilion Pavilion Staf costs 13107.00 Other - photocopy/post/misc 1277.00 Insurance 700.00 phone and internet audit Water supply and wastewater Performing Rights Fire fght equip servicing/replacement Gas boiler & CCTV servicing Cleaning materials & window cleaning Contract cleaning & Consumables Maintenance - routine Maintenance - capital works 1000 Council tax Electricity Gas Solid waste Rec Total Services and repairs (hut maintenance)& elec	Whole Year Budget £ 450.00 12147.00 0.00 0.00 8000.00 0.00 14000.00 0.00 12597.00 22000.00
49043.96		34597.00
250.06 120.00 750.00 760.00 250.00 363.00 2280.00 6156.65 3457.25 1277.00 777.50 453.65 250.00 179.47 80.56 57.50 298.33 687.25 3669.50 0.00 0.00 0.00 1105.45 1811.10 1571.06 10929.71		0.00 120.00 750.00 760.00 250.00 363.00 3700.00 6731.00 6404.00 1066.00 850.00 575.00 250.00 1000.00 200.00 200.00 500.00 4500.00 500.00 80.00 2000.00 1500.00 1500.00 12674.00

15675.62	Pavilion Total Charity Total Total Liss Recreation Ground Account	21125.00
26605.33		33799.00
22438.63		798.00

12 Months to Amount under/ - 3/31/2021 over Budget £

110.00 340.00 12147.00 0.00 25.00 -25.00 0.00 0.00 6609.91 1390.09 19907.43 -19907.43 14000.00 0.00 1.19 -1.19 12282.00 315.00 40518.53 -18518.53 52800.53 -18203.53

0.00 120.00 750.00 760.00 250.00 363.00 1800.00 1900.00 6731.00 1298.71 5105.29 72.83 993.17 850.00 421.58 153.42 250.00 260.74 739.26 200.00 59.50 140.50 500.00 386.74 -386.74 4500.00 1526.18 -1026.18 0.00 651.03 -571.03 1336.49 663.51 940.89 559.11 159.15 1340.85 1800.00 10874.00

7113.84 14011.16 8913.84 24885.16 43886.69 -43088.69

.........

7 Hodder Close, Chandlers Ford, Hants, SO53 4QD. Tel: [phone] Email: [e-mail]

02 February 2022

The Parish Clerk

Liss Parish Council

The Council Room

Liss Village Hall

Hill Brow Road

Liss

GU33 7LA

Dear Sarah

First Interim Internal Audit Report

Liss Parish Council – April 2021 – December 2021

The Accounts and Audit (England) Regulations 2015 (as amended) require all Town and Parish Councils to undertake an effective internal audit to evaluate the effectiveness of their risk management, control and governance processes, taking into account public sector internal auditing standards or guidance. We confirm that we are independent of the Council.

The internal audit work to be carried out has been planned to enable us to give our opinion on the control objectives set out in the Annual Internal Auditor’s Report on the 2021-22 Annual Governance and Accountability Annual Return (AGAR).

We have complied with the legal requirements and proper practices set out in:

• ‘Governance and Accountability for Local Councils – A Practitioners’ Guide (England)’ 2021

• The Accounts and Audit (England) Regulations 2015 (as amended).

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

April 4, 2022 Page 2

Background

Liss Parish Council had income and expenditure in 2020/2021 of between £200,000 and £300,000 and is subject to review by the External Auditor, PKF Littlejohn. The conclusion of audit notice from the External Auditor for 2020/2021 showed two “other matters” which states:

Information received from the smaller authority confirms that the approval date entered in Section 2 of the AGAR is incorrect. This should read 05/05/21.

The smaller authority is advised to take care when completing the AGAR in the future to ensure that it is filled out correctly. Information received from the authority indicates that they have received insurance claims/refunds against expenditure during the year and have accounted for it as a receipt in Section 2, Box 3 rather than netting it against the relevant expense. The authority was unable to provide specific evidence when further details were requested. Whilst the Practitioners’ Guide is silent on the matter, it is our view that the true cost to the authority should be shown on a net basis. Accounting on a gross basis inflates the gross income and gross expenditure of the authority and can push the authority into a higher fee band than it would otherwise be in.

Audit Note: The Joint Practitioners Audit Group and the External Auditor are continuing to discuss this issue to agree a definitive proper practice which will be included in the updated version of the Practitioners Guide 2022.

The Council is a sole managing trustee.

It is good practice for the Council to comply with the Local Government Transparency Code 2015.

The Council’s accounting records are maintained on RBS Omega Software. (Audit Note: The Council have purchased RBS Omega Software has been introduced for recording financial transactions for the 2021/2022 financial year for both the Parish and Charities Accounts.

Further confirmation has been obtained of good practice and compliance with the Transparency Code Regulation 2015 from the Council’s website.

The Council has appointed a new Responsible Finance Officer (RFO) who was appointed on 1 June 2021.She has made a good start to understand the requirements of the RBS Omega software and the processes required to ensure that sound financial control is maintained at the Parish Council.

The RFO has supplied back up information for the period April 2021 to December 2021 to support the current governance and financial management position of the Council.

The first interim internal audit visit was agreed with the Parish Clerk and RFO to be carried out on Thursday 20 January 2021 but due to IT issues on the day the

April 4, 2022 Page 3 Internal Auditor was not able to fulfil the commitment but agreed to return on Monday 31 January 2022 to complete the review. On the return visit the Parish Clerk was unable to be on site due to Covid 19 family issues but joined in on a meeting remotely with the Internal Auditor, the Assistant Clerk and RFO.

It was agreed that due to the RFO being new to the Council and the outstanding issues that remained incomplete for the Charity Accounts for the 2020/2021 financial year, the focus of the visit would concentrate on checking the status of the Charity Accounts and to provide support to the RFO to clear these so that they can be filed to the Charity Commission.

(Audit Note: We are pleased to report that on the day of the visit balances were confirmed for the Charity Accounts and we have been able to sign off the account details so that these can be filed with the Charity Commission).

We have also agreed with the Parish Clerk that a further return visit to check compliance with the governance and accountability for smaller authorities will be carried out on Thursday 10 March 2022.

Internal audit checks

We have also undertaken a series of audit tests on those records available for this review including Council documents, Minutes, policies, procedures, and insurance documentation to ascertain the efficiency and effectiveness of the Parish Council’s internal control framework. This internal audit report is based on the audit testing carried out at this review.

During this review we checked a sample of records and tested the following:

Minutes of Council and Committee Meetings Policies and Procedures Bank and cash Investments Budgetary Control VAT claims Financial Risk Assessment Transparency of the Council website

Findings

Details of good practice noted, our recommendations and other matters to be brought to the Council’s attention are set out below.

Good practice

• Staff remain aware of the requirements of GDPR

• The Council is registered with the ICO.

• Details of total payments authorised at meetings are recorded in the Minutes.

April 4, 2022 Page 4

• The Council take an active scrutiny role

• The budgeting process is detailed and monitored throughout the year.

• The Council remain compliant with the requirements of the Transparency Code Regulation 2015

Recommendations

• The balances held in the Current Account remain high due to the income received form CIL receipts and should be reviewed. Consideration should be given to reinvest balances with a suitable provider to secure better rates of interest for maximising the balances held by the Parish Council. (Audit Note: The Parish Clerk and RFO will make further enquires to resolve this issue).

• A VAT reimbursement claim for the period April 2021– December 2021 should be submitted to HMRC in the near future.

• In accordance with proper practices required by the External Auditor, each Invoice should be initialled and dated by the Clerk and the words “checked and agreed” should be used to confirm that an authenticity check has been carried out to confirm the amount to be paid and that goods and services have been delivered. A stamp should be used to record these details.

• Bank reconciliations should be produced, printed off, signed and dated by the RFO each month. Discrepancies should be followed up and cleared by the RFO to ensure that bank reconciliations are agreed to the details from the bank statements.

• the Chair of Finance Committee should sign and date the bank reconciliations quarterly to confirm that bank reconciliations have been carried out accurately as part of Parish Council scrutiny role.

Other matters to be brought to the Council’s attention

• As indicated, it should be noted that the External Auditor has highlighted in 2020/2021 that any authority which receives income in respect of an insurance claim against expenditure during the year should not account for it as a receipt but should be netting it off against the relevant expense. Whilst the Practitioners’ Guide is silent on the matter, the External Auditor’s view is that the true cost to the authority should be shown on a net basis. Accounting on a gross basis inflates the gross income and gross expenditure of the authority and can push the authority into a higher fee band than it would otherwise be in. The Joint Practitioners Audit Group (JPAG) and the External Auditor are continuing to discuss this issue to agree a definitive proper

April 4, 2022 Page 5

practice which will be included in the updated version of the Practitioners Guide 2022.

• The Council have provided evidence of the posting date for the Exercise of Public Rights in 2021 and will be able to tick “Yes” to Assertion 4 on Section 1 (Governance Statement) of the AGAR 2021/2022 to comply with the requirements of the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015. We will also be able to tick “Yes” to Control Objective M on the Annual Internal Audit Report 2021/2022.

• We note that the risk assessment for 2021/2022 will need to be approved by full Council by 31 March 2022. We understand that this will be reviewed and approved at the full Council meeting in March 2022. Once completed we will be satisfied that the Council can tick “Yes” to Assertion 5 on Section 1 (Governance Statement) of the AGAR 2021/2022 to comply with the requirements for the External Auditor. We will then tick “Yes” to Control Objective C on the Annual Internal Audit Report 2021/2022. The 2021/2022 Risk Assessment should then be uploaded on to the Council website for information.

• We also note that the Asset Register for 2021/2022 will need to be approved by full Council by the 31March 2022. We understand that this will be reviewed and approved at the full Council meeting in March 2022. Once this is completed the Council can tick “Yes” to Assertion 6 on the Annual Governance Statement on the AGAR 2021/2022. We will be able to tick “Yes” to Control Objective H on the Annual Internal Audit Report 2021/2022.

Conclusion

We have made recommendations in this report to enhance and strengthen the internal controls that exist. We can give limited assurance at this stage that the internal control framework is adequate, but we have agreed with the Parish Clerk and RFO that 2021/2022 is a transition year and that work in progress will be tested at the next visit to give full assurance that it is enough to take forward into 2022/2023. We will continue our testing at the next internal audit visit.

Next visit

April 4, 2022 Page 6 The next internal audit visit has been arranged for Thursday 10 March 2022.

At this visit detailed checks will be carried out on:

• Minutes of Council Meetings

• Bank and cash

• Investments

• Income and expenditure

• VAT claims

• 2022/2023 budget requirements

• Financial Risk Assessment

• Payroll Information

• Asset Register

• Transparency Code Regulation 2015

Next Steps

This report should be noted and circulated to the next meeting of the Parish Council.

They should decide what action will be taken on the recommendations we have made.

Tim Light FMAAT Internal auditor