Recommendation 13

Durham University highlighted that local authority accounts were an important means of democratic accountability, and could cover issues of financial sustainability, financial and service resilience and equity, and that work was needed to resolve questions of what local electors should be getting from accounts and the functions that accounts should be performing. The University agreed with Sir Tony’s proposals for bringing performance and financial information together and the need to make the data accessible to users of the accounts.32 The ICAEW also pointed out that financial statements were critical to decision making and a key tool in ensuring local authorities were accountable to councillors and residents, but they were not understandable or sufficiently transparent.33