Financial Accounts 2022 to 2023

Notice regarding 2022/23 Accounts

This notice is published under regulation 9A(6)(a) of the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015 (“the Regulations”).

1. Birmingham City Council (“the Council”) has not been able to publish its accountability statements for the financial year 2022/2023 by 13 December 2024 as required by regulation 9A(2) of the Regulations.
2. The reasons for this are as follows.
   
   The Council implemented a new enterprise resource planning system, in April 2022. This is software which supports and integrates different parts of the Council’s operations. There have been a number of issues with the running of the system since then. While fixes have been put in place to ensure that the Council’s assets are safeguarded, and to ensure that transactions with residents, suppliers and customers can occur appropriately, it is not possible to establish with a reasonable level of certainty that the ledger is free from material misstatement for the financial year 2022/2023. Because of this, the Council’s Responsible Financial Officer has been and remains unable to confirm (as required by reg 9(1) of the Regulations) that she is satisfied that the statement of accounts for the financial year 2022/2023 presents a true and fair view of
   1. the financial position of the Council at the end of that year,
      
      or of
   2. the Council’s income and expenditure for that year.
      
      Because she has been unable to give that confirmation, the Council has been unable to approve the statement of accounts for the financial year 2022/2023 under reg 9(2) of the Regulations or to publish its accountability statements for that year under reg 9A(2) of the Regulations.
3. The Regulations require the Council to state in this notice that it acknowledges that it must publish its accountability statements for the financial year 2022/2023 as soon as reasonably practicable.  However, it would be very costly for the Council to gather the data needed to ensure that the ledger is sufficiently free from material misstatement such that the Council’s Responsible Financial Officer could give the confirmation required by reg 9(1). As a result, the Council is currently liaising with the Secretary of State to determine what form of accountability statements for the financial year 2022/2023, if any, it may be able to publish.

A copy of this notice is being sent to the Secretary of State.

Fiona Greenway
Director of Finance (Responsible Finance Officer)
13 December 2024

Page last updated: 13 December 2024