Lancashire Combined Fire Authority

Audit Committee

Meeting to be held on 8 July 2024

Financial Statements Update

(Appendix 1)

Contact for further information:

Steven Brown - Director of Corporate Services – Telephone Number 01772 826804

Executive Summary

This report provides the Audit Committee with an update on preparation of the Authority’s 2023/24 unaudited Financial Statements and includes the draft core financial statements for information; the Comprehensive Income and Expenditure Account, Movement in Reserves Statement and Balance Sheet.

Decision Required

The Committee are asked to:-

· note the update with progress in preparing the unaudited Financial Statements; and

· note the Authority’s draft core financial statements that will form part of the 2023/24 unaudited Financial Statements.

Information

For the financial year 2023/24, the draft accounts should be published by the statutory deadline; 31 May 2024, and the audited accounts should be made available by 31 July 2024. Unfortunately, this timeline was not met due to reasons outside the organisations control but the draft accounts were subsequently published on 5 July 2024.

There is no requirement to present the unaudited accounts to the Committee before the external audit process commences however, to ensure the Committee is kept up to date with the process towards completion of the audited accounts the draft core financial statements are included in Appendix 1.

The Accounts and Audit (England) Regulations 2015 apply to the preparation, approval and audit of the Statements of Accounts and other financial statements. These regulations are based on International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) which attempt to standardise accounts in a consistent format across both the public and private sectors with the aim of achieving greater transparency. The table below summarises the adjustments required to the revenue outturn to reach the Total Comprehensive Income and Expenditure reported in the financial statements.

	£’000
Revenue Outturn - Overspend	220
Remove Capital Contributions and transfers to / from reserves	(4,459)
Adjustments for Capital Purposes	4,301
Net change for Pensions Adjustments	4,570
Other Differences	1,206
Deficit on provision of services	5,838
(Surplus)/Deficit on revaluation of fixed assets	(1,206)
Actuarial (gains)/losses on pension fund assets	(4,170)
Total Comprehensive Income and Expenditure	(461)

The draft Comprehensive Income and Expenditure Account, Movement in Reserves Statement and Balance Sheet are set out in Appendix 1. Subject to changes as part of the Quality Assurance Processes these will form part of the accounts for audit.

Financial Implications

As set out in the report.

Legal Implications

None.

Business Risk Implications

None

Environmental Impact

None

Equality and Diversity Implications

None

Human Resource Implications

None

Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985

List of background papers

N/a

Appendix 1: Core Financial Statements

Appendix 1

Comprehensive Income & Expenditure Account

Movement in Reserves Statement

Balance Sheet