We publish an annual statement of accounts to give electors, local taxpayers, councillors and other interested parties clear information about our finances.

The statement summarises:

• the cost of services provided by us in the year
• how services were paid for
• our assets and liabilities at the end of the financial year

Cambridge City Council VAT Number: 214428193.

Statement of accounts 2023/24: Delay notice

The Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015 require local authorities to publish a draft unaudited Statement of Accounts by 31 May each year, and then to commence a period for the exercise of public rights of objection, inspection and questioning of the local auditor.

Unfortunately, it has not been possible for us to publish our draft statement in line with this deadline, so the period for the exercise of public rights has not yet begun. The main reasons for the delay are:

• a sector-wide skills shortage, which has hampered our ability to recruit appropriately qualified staff to cover the absence of key individuals in our Finance team
• the knock-on impact of delays to the audit of the 2022/23 Statement of Accounts (see below), which has required additional quality assurance work to be carried out prior to publication

These issues are sector-wide, and many other councils will be in a similar situation. For context, in 2022/23 the deadline was missed by over 70% of English local authorities.

We will endeavour to publish our draft Statement of Accounts as soon as reasonably practicable. We currently expect this to be no later than 30 November 2024.

We will publish further announcements here in due course. In the meantime, if you have any questions, or if you would like to be notified directly when the public inspection period begins, contact Jody Etherington, Chief Finance Officer at jody.etherington@cambridge.gov.uk.

Statement of accounts 2022/23: External audit delay

• Draft Statement of Accounts 2022/23 [PDF, 1.5MB]
• Draft Annual Governance Statement 2022/23 [PDF, 0.5MB]
• Inspection of the accounts: Public notice [PDF, 68Kb]

The external audit of the draft statement of accounts for the year ended 31 March 2023 has not yet been completed by our external auditor, EY LLP, due to the complex set of factors contributing to audit delays across the sector. This situation is allowed for by Regulation 10, paragraph (2a) of the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015.

In accordance with the provisions set out in paragraph (2a) of the aforementioned regulations, we wish to confirm that we are not yet able to publish our audited 2022/23 final statement of accounts in line with the statutory deadline of 30 September 2023, as per paragraph (1) of the same regulations.

Our Civic Affairs Committee will meet to consider the results of the 2022/23 audit when the external auditor has completed their work. We will publish the accounts after the committee has considered the auditor’s findings and approved the accounts for publication.

Previous statements

• Statement of Accounts 2021/22 [PDF, 2MB]
• Statement of Accounts 2020/21 [PDF, 2MB]
• Statement of Accounts 2019/20 [PDF, 7MB]
• Statement of Accounts 2018/19 [PDF, 1.5MB]
• Statement of Accounts 2017/18 [PDF, 1.5MB]
• Statement of Accounts 2016/17 [PDF, 1.5MB]

Closure of audits in respect of previous years

Regulation 16 of the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015 requires that, following the conclusion of the external audit of our financial statements, we must publish a statement on our website confirming the audit has been concluded.

We can confirm that our external auditor has concluded their audit of our financial statements up to and including the financial statements for the 2020/21 financial year.

Regulation 16(1) of the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015 states that a local government elector for any area to which the accounts relates may inspect and make copies of the audited Statement of Accounts, the local auditor’s opinion on the Statement of Accounts and the local auditor’s certificate.

The audited statement of accounts, which includes the local auditor’s opinion, can be downloaded by following the links above.

The auditor’s certificate forms part of the published audit opinion for the financial years 2016/17 to 2019/20 and can be obtained by downloading the relevant published audited financial statements.

The auditor’s certificate for later years is available using the following links:

• Signed audit certificate 2021/22 (scanned document) [PDF, 0.4MB]
• Signed audit certificate 2020/21 (scanned document) [PDF, 0.7MB]

Contact us if you want to inspect or request printed copies of the aforementioned documents. We will charge a reasonable fee to provide printed documents.