The Treasurer submitted a report, the purpose of which, was to present the audited Annual Accounting Statement for the 2019-20 financial year to the Joint Committee, following closure of the accounts, and to inform the Joint Committee of details of income and expenditure for the first quarter of the 2020-21 financial year, and provide a projection of the final outturn position.

The Finance Manager, Financial Control and Closing advised that, nder Regulation 14 of the Accounts and Audit (Wales) Regulations 2014, Coychurch Crematorium Joint Committee is required to complete an Annual Accounting Statement as they are classed as a smaller local government body with annual income and expenditure below £2.5 million.

The Accounts and Audit (Wales) Regulations 2018 require that the Joint Committee must formally approve the Annual Accounting Statement by 15 June and certify that they present fairly the financial position of Coychurch Crematorium. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Joint Committee were unable to approve the statement by this date. It has been agreed with Audit Wales to accept the Annual Accounting Statement being certified at the meeting on the 4th September.

Due to Covid-19 the auditor has already undertaken their audit and as a result has identified that no amendments are required, as outlined in their Audit letter in Appendix 1 to the report. The certified Annual Accounting Statement must be published by no later than 15 September 2020, the Officer explained.

Section 1 of the Annual Accounting Statement (Appendix 2) shows that in 2019-20 Coychurch Crematorium made a net surplus of £298,201 (difference between Line 1 ‘Balances brought forward’ and Line 7 ‘Balances carried forward’). The surplus has been added to the accumulated reserve for the Crematorium brought forward at        31 March 2019, bringing the total of that reserve to £2,053,652 at 31 March 2020 compared to £1,755,451 in the preceding year.

Table 1 in this section of the report, showed a summary of the final financial position for the Crematorium for 2019-20, as compared to the budget set out at the commencement of the financial year.

The Finance Manager, Financial Control and Closing referred Members to paragraph 4.2 of the report, where there were explanations for the more significant variances from budget.

Table 2 in the report, then gave a breakdown of the Planned Maintenance Budget, along with the Outturn and Variances for 2019-20.

She explained that The balance of £245,000 on the flower court extension, £300,000 for Site Lighting and £20,000 for Electricity Distribution Boards have all been carried forward and form part of the 2020-21 Planned Capital Maintenance budget.

Income is higher than budgeted by £22,000 due to the Child Burial Fees Grant (£13,000) and Cremation Fees (£9,000).

In addition to the Annual Accounting Statement, a supplementary Balance Sheet is provided in Table 3 below. This supplementary information provides a further breakdown of the figures recorded in the Annual Accounting Statement. This was for information only, and is not subject to audit at year end.   

Table 3 then outlined the Balance Sheet for Years ended 31 March 2019 and 2020 and further information explaining the balances within this table, was detailed in paragraph 4.4 of the report.

Table 4 then gave the Crematorium Financial Position 2020-21, with an explanation of the variances between the Budget and Projected Outturn, detailed immediately below this table.

Finally, Table 5 in paragraph 4.6 of the report, reflected the Capital Financing budget of £882k as broken down for the various works so listed in such table.

RESOLVED:                          The Joint Committee:

(a)  Approved the Annual Accounting Statement for Coychurch Crematorium for 2019-20 (Appendix 2 to the report),and requested that the Chairperson of the Joint Committee signs the Annual Accounting Statement.

(b)  Noted the projected financial performance of Coychurch Crematorium for 2020-21.