The Group Manager – Chief Accountant presented a report with the unaudited Statement of Accounts for 2020-21 for noting.

He advised that the Council’s unaudited Statement of Accounts for the financial year ending 31 March 2021 was attached at Appendix A to the report. The Statement of Accounts comprised a number of different statements relating to financial performance and reserves, as well as the Annual Governance Statement. The Annual Governance Statement will be signed by the Leader of the Council and Chief Executive once the audit has been completed.

The Accounts include the following core Financial Statements (pages 16 to 19 of the Accounts):

· Comprehensive Income and Expenditure Statement

· Movement in Reserves Statement

· Balance Sheet

· Cash Flow Statement

The Group Manager – Chief Accountant provided figures relating to the reserves of the Council and outlined the key areas of such. The figures were listed at section 4 of the report.

The Group Manager – Chief Accountant explained that the total capital spending during 2020-21 was £23.461 million. Assets created, improved or under development as a result of this spend included:

· East Hub at Brynteg School

· New mobile classrooms at Mynydd Cynffig Primary School

· Maesteg Town Hall Cultural Hub

The Group Manager – Chief Accountant explained that the unaudited statement of accounts was now being audited by Audit Wales and a final version of the accounts would be brought back to the Governance and Audit Committee at the meeting in July 2021. He further outlined the financial statement sections of Appendix 1 which covered the following:

• Expenditure and Funding Analysis
• Note to the Expenditure and Funding Analysis
• Expenditure and Income Analysed by Nature
• Precepts and levies
• Council Tax
• Grants
• Usable reserves

The Chairperson thanked the team for the report and found that the information displayed was broken down well and made easier to read this year.

The Lay Member asked if it was to be expected that the Council was at an underspend for the year, given the difficulties faced since the Pandemic.

The Chief Officer – Finance Performance and Change explained that BCBC were able to obtain a small surplus of cash but given the pressures that were likely to come once the hardship funds for businesses and other grants had stopped, earmarked reserves had been increased with the surplus and that would be used to help with the pressures that were anticipated.

A Member asked if thought had been given to people who had got over Covid-19 but still experienced the ‘long covid’ symptoms and needed support for these.

The Chief Officer – Finance Performance and Change explained that there was a Covid-19 reserve fund which had been used for emergencies. The fund had also been increased at year end. She added that the fund would continue for the foreseeable future and would cover a number of aspects of Covid related issues.

The Chairperson asked in relation to the overdraft on page 92, what the details surrounding this were.

The Group Manager – Chief Accountant explained that there were funds due to come back to the accounts on the 31^st March 2021, but that these were not returned until after the year end. The funds were returned a few days later and the team requested further money due to the interest charges incurred, which were paid.

The Chairperson asked with regards to debtors, the figures in the table on page 129, went up from 25,168 to 43,489. She asked what the reasons for this were.

The Group Manager – Chief Accountant explained that a large element of this was due to the pooled funding arrangement for residential care between social services, Cwm Taf Health Board, RCTCBC and Merthyr CBC. A payment of £9 million needed to be made for residential care. An increase in sales ledger debt of £4.75 million year on year also contributed to this figure and the Council Tax debtor provision had increased by £2.4 million. There were due to be grants received in the year which did not arrive until after the year end so this increased the level of debtors by £6 million in total. Most of these issues were timing issues, and much of it would be recovered throughout the following year, he concluded.

RESOLVED:                                   That the Committee noted the unaudited Statement of Accounts 2020-21 at Appendix A to the report.