Auditors mistakenly tell council they own property 65 miles away

A report by the external auditors tasked with keeping a close eye on Herefordshire Council’s finances mistakenly shows they own property some 65 miles away.

Grant Thornton’s updated audit findings report presented to the audit and governance committee this week said the council owned the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Leisure Centre, Benn Hall and the John Barford Car Park in Rugby, Warwickshire.

But these properties actually belong to Rugby Borough Council.

Grant Thornton’s Jon Roberts, who has 30 years’ experience of public audit, apologised and asked the committee to ignore that information in the report.

“Could I draw your attention to a typographical error on page 13 which has just been identified and could I ask you to disregard the first paragraph of the slide on page 13?” He asked.

“The rest of the information on that slide is correct.

“There are some extraneous references that have crept into the first paragraph of that page which I apology for not being picked up in our quality review procedures.

“So apologies to the members for any confusion that may have caused.

“Is that OK for the members of the committee?”

Councillor Roger Phillips said: “Yeah, well, we spotted it didn’t we?”

Committee chairman Nigel Shaw said: “We were surprised to see we had land and assets in Rugby but which weren’t actually ours.”