Birmingham City Council, Europe's largest local authority, has been praised for a rapid improvement in its financial transparency, following a string of accounting errors last year. Birmingham's annual accounts for 2009/10 were signed off by auditors earlier than any of the authority's past five assessments, the council's cabinet was told this week. It followed major problems with Birmingham's 2008/09 accounts, the completion of which was reportedly hindered by more than 40 mistakes -such as the inclusion of building assets worth around ￡10m that were no longer owned by the council. Those errors led auditors to partially qualify Birmingham's accounts for the first time in the authority's history last year.
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