Financial
LFR is included within all County Council financial procedures. This includes budget setting, budget monitoring and the production of final accounts. This ensures public money is properly accounted for. LFR conducts its activities, as part of the County Council, in accordance with its duty under section 3 of the Local Government Act 1999 in respect of ensuring it performs its functions economically, efficiently and effectively.
The Executive Director of Resources is responsible for the preparation of the Authority’s Statement of Accounts in accordance with proper practices. (This is set out in the CIPFA and LASAAC Code of Practice on Local Authority Accounting in the United Kingdom). The purpose of the accounts is to give electors, local taxpayers and service users, elected members, employees and other interested parties clear information about the Council’s finances. The draft Statement of Accounts for 2021 to 2022 can be found at Statement of Accounts.
The Authority’s financial statements and value for money conclusions are audited independently. At the time of writing, the audit for 2021 to 2022 is still on-going. However no matters have been identified which would prevent the Auditors from giving an unqualified opinion on the financial statements or an unqualified Value for Money conclusion. When published the audit opinion can be found within the Annual Audit Letter.
Value for money
LFR ended 2021 to 2022 with just £10k overspend on a £22.4m revenue budget.This is well within LCC 1% budget tolerance target.
There was a realignment of £3.8m on the original capital budget of £4.2m. These funds have been re-phased into 2022 to 2023 to support committed Capital programme. This ensures we continue to have a balanced Capital programme with agreed Capital commitment over the next two years.
LFR continues to have a revenue budget that results in being within the 15% most efficient Fire Services out of the 43 Services in England when comparing Revenue Budget against head of population.