Bury Conservatives this week raised significant concerns regarding the quality of audit reports being made to Bury Council. You can read a full report in the Bury Times, where Cllr David Silbiger described the report to the audit committee as “damning”:

He said: “I must tell you, the report is concerning to me. Pretty much 40 per cent of them are graded inadequate of unsatisfactory so I find it quite hard to marry up the opinion that the significant risks have adequate assurance. More concerning is the ones that are unsatisfactory or inadequate are key issues within the council. The council’s ability to deliver the budget cuts. Obviously, we all agree, the budget rests on the council’s ability to deliver these cuts. Every year there’s slippage in the council’s ability to deliver these cuts.

If that’s unsatisfactory,  it definitely wouldn’t give me adequate assurance that significant risks are addressed. You’ve got debt assistance being inadequate, you’re got credit payments unsatisfactory, insurance being inadequate, business continuity planning inadequate. I assume that’s even before Covid. There’s too many key ones. I appreciate you’re saying 60 per cent is good or adequate. To me, 40 per cent is a very large number and the issues that are inadequate or unsatisfactory are more key issues in the council than the 60 per cent that is good or satisfactory.”