Is The Game Up for "This Land"?

 

The record loss in the year to Dec 2019 was in large part due to that year’s inventory impairment charge of £7.58m to bring the total inventories value (which included a loan interest component) down to the assessed net realisable value of the inventories.  If that impairment charge were removed, the £11.2m comprehensive loss in 2022/23 would have been the highest to date. 

 

In the financial statements, the administrative expense categories are not shown in full, with a total that reconciles with the headline admin expenses in the Profit & Loss account.  This is contrary to how financial statements are normally disclosed.  It means the reader of the accounts has no visibility of what type(s) of admin expenses are included in the undisclosed £8.97m since 2017.  This is a clear fraud risk factor, and it is surprising that the external auditor has not insisted that This Land follow the accounting convention of recording all sub-categories in the notes to the accounts, even if it means including a catch-all “other” category for very small amounts not shown elsewhere.  In every financial period bar 2022/23, the undisclosed admin expenses values were higher than staff costs.

 

 

The Chief Executive Officer’s total remuneration (excl. employer’s NIC contributions) has risen pro-rata by 40% in the last two financial periods (£19% per annum).

 

Where’s our money gone

An open letter to Cambridgeshire County Council’s Chief Executive Officer

Dear Dr Moir,

Democracy denied

Following our recent correspondence, I look forward to receiving the documents and accounting records I requested but was denied during the August public inspection period.  Of the many pieces of information that remain outstanding are the transactions (invoices and any other transactions) that make up the £27,846,194 worth of City Deal grant expenditure in 2022/23 (according to the authority), together with their corresponding unique payment ID references that appear in the Transparency Code spend data.  Armed with that information it should be a straightforward exercise to clear up the mystery of why the “full list” of ring-fenced City Deal cost centres (also according to the authority) only record £16.97m of net payments during the 2022/23 financial year.  The time differences between invoice and payment dates should more or less even out, which leaves a so-far unexplained discrepancy of £10.88m for the year. 

Since the end of the inspection period this reconciliation has become more topical following an article last week by the BBC and the Cambridge News about two GCP projects being paused thanks to spiralling costs and insufficient funds.  Two of the City Deal cost centres: “GCP - Cambridge South East (A1307)”, and “GCP - Travel Hubs” would appear to be connected to those two projects.

Under section 3 of the Local Audit & Accountability Act 2014, councils must keep adequate accounting records, sufficient “to show and explain the relevant authority’s transactions.”  I trust the authority will provide me with those records and the other information I requested during the statutory inspection period, so that I can pass them on to the auditor in good time for him to consider all the points in my objection to the 2022/23 draft financial statements.

Thank you for taking personal responsibility in dealing with this important matter.

Yours sincerely,

Andrew Rowson

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More Tricks More Stalling

 The following article appeared Private Eye last week: