Scrapped: Plans to revamp town hall balance sheets

摘要

Plans to streamline thepreparation of last year’s localauthority accounts to reduce theburden on finance departmentsstruggling with the impact of thecoronavirus have been scrappedafter regulators objected.As a result finance teams feardelays in producing 2019/20accounts will impinge onplanning budgets for 2020/21just as councils face reductionsin income from business rate andcharges due to the virus.The Chartered Institute ofPublic Finance and Accountancy(CIPFA) and the Local Authority(Scotland) Accounts AdvisoryCommittee (LASAAC) had made‘radical proposals’ to streamlinethe 2019/20 accounting processto reduce pressure on financeteams that have been divertedto deal with the virus. However,regulators and auditors objectedwhile the Treasury said itwould mean information beingmissed out for its whole-of-Government’s accounts.