Recommendation 12

Sir Tony Redmond emphasised the need for much greater transparency in the financial reporting of local authorities, to turn accounts that were impenetrable to the public into simpler information that the public wanted to know about. His review had recommended that the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) examine whether the accounts could be simplified, but he did not feel that this could be fully achieved within the framework of statutory accounts. Sir Tony considered that a simple standardised statement would help the public to understand a local authority’s financial position and how it had performed.29 He proposed a further way to bring greater transparency to the public would be for a local authority’s auditor to present a report to its council members each Autumn. He explained that the report to the council meeting would be in the public domain, and provide an opportunity to cover the issues of interest to the public.30 Sir Tony acknowledged that the desire for greater transparency had to be balanced against any sensitivity of the information, in deciding what could be disclosed.31