Delay in publishing audited statement of accounts, year ended 31st March 2023

Published Monday, 2nd October 2023

The external audit of the draft statement of accounts for the year ended 31st March 2023 has commenced but not been completed by our external auditors, Mazars, and therefore the Council is unable to publish the audited financial statements in accordance with the statutory timetable of the 30th September 2023

The Council expects an unqualified opinion on its statement of accounts. The reasons for the delay is that Mazars have a backlog of audit work from previous years and are experiencing resourcing difficulties, which is impacting on the timely delivery of the 2022/23 audit. This situation is allowed for by regulation 10, paragraph (2a) of the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015. Therefore, this notification explains, as per paragraph (2a), that we are not yet able to publish our audited 2022/23 final statement of accounts in line with deadline of 30th September 2023, as per paragraph (1). The final audited Statement of Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2023 will be published as soon as the issues above are resolved. The draft Statement of Accounts 2022/23 is available by clicking here 

James Magog, Director of Finance, IT and Digital, Hartlepool Borough Council, Civic Centre, Victoria Road, Hartlepool TS24 8AY.