Council’s Accounts Wrong By £42 Million
Independent Auditors KPMG have identified accounting errors at County Hall on a staggering scale.
The mistakes include the former County Council believing itself to have £15.5 million in the bank, when in fact it was £21.5 million in the red! Another error - to the value of £42 million - was caused by ‘errors in spreadsheets used to generate the Statement of Account figures.’
The auditors called the draft accounts of the old council ‘poor and incomplete’ and made no fewer than 19 detailed and significant recommendations for urgent improvement to the council’s financial management. Several of those recommendations are still not yet resolved, and the auditors will not be able to approve the accounts within the published deadline.
‘The scale of this defies belief,’ Paul said. ‘I am staggered. The leadership of this council promised us £18 million in savings. How could they work that out, when their understanding of their own bank balance is out by nearly three times that amount?’
Paul’s colleagues have also condemned the mismanagement. Chris Caswill said “This is genuinely shocking. The Conservative leadership of the new council, which is broadly the same as the leadership of the old County Council, has some big questions to answer about how the council and its predecessor got into this mess with taxpayers money.” Malcolm Hewson, councillor for Bradford South, believes the report shows incompetence. “This is appalling! In the dry, measured auditor’s language, KPMG have exposed incompetence at the heart of the Conservative administration of Wiltshire Council. It is hardly surprising that the Tories have just had to admit to a £3.8m projected overspend. How can the people of Wiltshire believe any financial figures they produce? The Conservatives cannot blame this on the government, nor bleat that Wiltshire County Council no longer exists. Wiltshire Council has the same leadership as Wiltshire County Council, the same basic organisation and the same Tories at the very top.”
To see the full Auditors report, click here.
To see Wiltshire Liberal Democrats statement on this issue, click here.
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This is hopeless mismanagement of OUR money. One of the many questions which arises is how are they going to get out of this financial hole ? Will they just slap the cost of their incompetence on our council tax ?