West Lindsey District Council is praised after audit into financial accounts

The audit was undertaken by the district council’s independent external auditors KPMG to assess the local authority on its financial statements for the 2015 to 2016 financial year.

The report states: “In our opinion the financial statements give a true and fair view of the financial position of the authority as at 31 March 2016 and of the authority’s expenditure and income for the year then ended.”

The report concluded that the council achieved ‘unqualified value for money’ to taxpayers.

This means the auditors are satisfied that the local authority has proper arrangements for securing financial resilience and challenging how it secures economy, efficiency and effectiveness.

The independent assessment has been welcomed by the chairman of the district council’s governance and audit committee, Coun Giles McNeill.

Coun McNeill said: “I am pleased to see that we have a received independent confirmation that the council is managing its public finances well, continuing to support our communities.”

And Coun McNeill said West Lindsey District Council had helped many communities with millions of pounds of funding.

He said: “The council made £2.6 million available across the district to enable our communities to develop and thrive through 165 individual projects.

“In addition, almost 400 individual grants were awarded, totalling more than three quarters of a million pounds to support community based schemes.

“This in turn, brought in match funding in excess of eight hundred and fifty thousand pounds.

“Together with local communities and our partners we have been able to achieve a great deal.”

The council has also worked to encourage volunteering across the district, resulting in almost 49,000 volunteer hours undertaken.

This equates to more than £500k of social value invested across the district.