Recommendation 9

We pressed the Department on when we would see improvements in the timeliness of local authorities publishing their audited accounts. The Department felt that it would not be possible to bring timeliness back on track in one audit cycle in 2021, given the impact of Covid-19. It explained that it had adjusted the deadline for local authorities to publish their accounts to 30 September for 2021 and 2022. It would then review what the appropriate deadline should be. It expected to have better visibility of the completion of local authority audits by 2022, and that we would see progress in timeliness in the audit cycles for 2021 and 2022.19 The Local Government Association noted that the move of the audit deadline to 30 September for the next two years was a positive one.20