Powys Council’s 2025/26 accounts approved
But finance chiefs will need to check with councillors to make sure the list of councillors’ declarations of interest is up to date.
At a meeting of Powys County Council’s Governance and Audit Committee, councillors and an independent lay member received reports on the auditing of the 2025/2026 accounts by Audit Wales before approving them.
Financial reporting and policy accountant Dan Paley said that the council had agreed to all three recommendations that had been made by Audit Wales following its work.
Committee chairwoman and independent lay member Lynne Hamilton asked: “Can you say a wee bit more on related party disclosures, there seems to be a fair bit of correction in there.”
Mr Paley explained: “We email all the members (councillors) to disclose close family interests and then there is the declarations of interest that we pick up from Modern.gov.
“There were items that officers had missed, some councillors had moved from positions during the year, that were not picked up and a couple that were missed.
“Audit Wales review Companies House and Charity Commission records for all councillors.
“During that process they picked up nine councillors who had not disclosed 12 related parties – they weren’t material or had no standing for the accounts.
“They were flagging up that the process needs to be a bit firmer when asking councillors for related parties.”
He told the committee that officers had already discussed including these checks with Companies House and the Charity Commission in their work for next year in order to “get those assurances.”
Mr Paley said that councillors would get extra training on this issue – especially new ones elected after the local elections next May.
Mrs Hamilton said: “Hopefully this can be improved.”
Emma Woodcock of Audit Wales said: “We’re minded to give an unqualified opinion.
“There are no significant matters but there are other issues, being: there were a number of delays in terms of working papers, and we were waiting quite a while for some information.”
She explained there would be “project learning” to understand what can be done to improve this issue, which may become more important in the future with deadlines for audits coming earlier next year.
Ms Woodcock said: “From our perspective if the council can get on top of the related parties that will help us out for next year’s audit.”
This is because it takes “some time” to trawl through Companies House and Charity Commission records for each councillor.
Cllr William Powell (Liberal Democrat – Talgarth) suggested that council group leaders could tell their members to ensure they have declared all their interests.
“It might be useful,” said Cllr Powell.
The committee agreed both reports and the accounts will be officially signed off by the end of the month.
By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter
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