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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what progress his Department has made on clearing the backlog of local audits in England since the 2015-16 financial year.

The Department working with system partners has developed proposals to tackle the exceptional circumstance of the current backlog and ensure a return to timely delivery of high-quality financial reporting and external audit in local bodies.

This has been detailed work, balancing various imperatives across the system. Having thoroughly tested the options, I recently wrote to the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee and confirmed that the Department, supported by the Financial Reporting Council, and alongside the National Audit Office, will launch consultations on these proposals in the coming weeks. The solution on the table has the agreement of all system partners and is the best proposal to clear the backlog and over time, return to high quality assurance.

Our proposals will include an initial statutory backstop date of 30 September 2024 for local authorities and auditors to publish their audited financial accounts for all outstanding local audits in England up to and including the financial year 2022-23. While these consultations take place, preparers and auditors should continue undertaking existing work to produce and audit local authority financial statements to ensure the system is in the best place possible to implement any final package of measures.