The Accountant Financial Control and Closing presented a report, in order to present the unaudited Annual Accounting Statement for the 2022-23 financial year to the Joint Committee, and to obtain approval to submit the Annual Accounting Statement for Coychurch Crematorium to Audit Wales.

He confirmed that the Accounts and Audit (Wales) Regulations 2018, required that the Joint Committee must formally approve the Annual Accounting Statement by 30 June this year and certify that they present fairly the financial position of Coychurch Crematorium.

In relation to the current situation, he drew Members attention to Section 1 of the Annual Accounting Statement (Appendix 1 to the report), which showed that in 2022-23 Coychurch Crematorium made a net deficit of £361,665 (difference between Line 1 ‘Balances brought forward’ and Line 7 ‘Balances carried forward’). The deficit had been deducted from the accumulated reserve for the Crematorium brought forward at 31 March 2022, bringing the total of that reserve to £2,817,942 at 31 March 2023 compared to £3,179,607 at 31 March 2022.

Table 1 in the report, reflected a summary of the final financial position for the Crematorium for 2022-23 compared to the budget set at the start of the financial year.

Paragraph 3.2 of the report, outlined some explanations for the more significant variances from budget, which he expanded upon for the benefit of the Joint Committee.

Table 2 in the report, showed a breakdown of the Planned Capital Maintenance Budget (referred to as Capital Financing costs in Table 1) along with the Outturn and Variances for 2022-23.

In addition to the Annual Accounting Statement, a supplementary Balance Sheet was provided in Table 3 within the report. This supplementary information provided a further breakdown of the figures recorded in the Annual Accounting Statement.  The Accountant Financial Control and Closing, advised that this was for information only and was therefore not subject to audit at year end.

Further information concerning the balances detailed in Table 3, were detailed at paragraph 3.4 of the report.

RESOLVED:                            That the Joint Committee approved the Annual Accounting Statement for Coychurch Crematorium for 2022-23 (Appendix 1 of the report referred), and requested that the Chairperson of the Joint Committee signs the Annual Accounting Statement prior to submission to Audit Wales.