DORSET Council’s 2020/21 external audit of its accounts remains delayed and is not likely to be signed off until the early summer.

West Dorset councillor Simon Christopher pressed the man leading the external audit on Monday to say whether or not he thought the service offered council taxpayers value for money.

In reply senior auditor Ian Howse, from Deloittes, said he could understand the frustration of councillors and member of the public over the delays, which he said had been caused by a series of changes to the guidance in the way some issues had to be dealt with.

He said the audit report should be finalised for councillors to review by the end of April and ought to be signed off by the summer, and that work was already underway on the council’s 21/22 external audit. He said he hoped to see the external audit process back on track by the end of the calendar year.

Cllr Christopher told an audit committee meeting that while only 12 per cent of all local authority audits were signed off on time, it led to questions about value for money and whether having only four big accounting firms able to do the work provided enough competition across the country.

Mr Howse said that council audit work had become increasingly more complex, with only a limited number of experts available.

“We are doing our best to deliver as quickly as we can within the constraints put on us by the legislation which exists…it is a sector-wide issue,” he said.

Audit committee chairman Cllr Richard Biggs said he was frustrated, not only about the time the audit was taking, but the fact that the process seemed unable to offer any kind of benchmarking between councils to help judge, objectively, if services were being delivered in an efficient way.

The council’s 2019/20 external audit had also been delayed for similar reasons, by around eight months.