Each year we publish our statement of accounts, which shows the expenditure that the council incurred and the income that it received in the year. It also contains a balance sheet that shows the value of the council's assets and liabilities, along with other financial statements and disclosures.
The audit of the 2020-21 accounts has now been completed and the final, audited statement of accounts is available to download from the link below. An unqualified audit opinion has been issued in relation to the 2020-21 statement of accounts but the auditors are currently unable to issue the audit certificate that formally concludes the audit process. This is because of delays nationally to the 2020-21 Whole of Government Accounts work. The auditors are unable to issue their audit certificate until this work is complete, which is likely to be in January 2023 at the earliest. The auditors will, in due course, give their formal opinion on the accounts by way of an annual audit letter which, again, will be published when it is available.
In June 2022 the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) passed new legislation, the Accounts and Audit (Amendment) Regulations 2022, which relates to the financial years ending 31 March 2022 to 31 March 2028. This stipulated that the deadline for publishing the draft, unaudited accounts is 31 July in each of these years, with the deadline for the final, audited accounts being 30 November in 2022 and 30 September in 2023 to 2028.
The production of the statement of accounts for the year ending 31 March 2022, and the external audit thereof by our external auditors Mazars LLP, have been delayed due to staff resource constraints and the large amounts of work associated with implementing local government reorganisation in North Yorkshire from 1 April 2023. The draft accounts were published on 5 December 2022 and the audit is now ongoing.
The Museums' collections development policy provides additional information about the heritage assets described within the statement of accounts.