Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the failure of EY to complete local authority audits within the required time limits.

We are aware of this issue, affecting 19 local government bodies and, together with Public Sector Audit Appointments Ltd, are monitoring the situation. It is not acceptable for a professional services firm like EY to be unable to meet its contractual obligations to the statutory timetable and we expect the situation to be resolved as quickly as possible.

The forthcoming review of the local audit regime will consider the implications of our audit policy, including the timeliness of audit completion.