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Private sector auditors are bidding to charge nearly £100,000 MORE for one year’s work examining Milton Keynes Council’s finances.

And that’s on top of tens of thousands of pounds more that external auditor Ernst & Young (EY) is requesting to be paid for a previous year’s work.

A meeting last week heard how the decision over external audit fees is not in the power of the council to decide.

It will be made at a national level and the council will have to stump up, after the decision-makers have heard from all sides, the audit committee heard.

It is a prospect that Lib Dem councillor Robin Bradburn (Bradwell) finds “very depressing”.

Cllr Bradburn, who chairs the council’s budget and resources scrutiny committee, said: “The profession is down to a very limited number of companies that can facilitate audits for local authorities and that puts us in a bad position of no competition.”

He queried why the council’s recycling centre needed to be valued and why an external audit of grants paid by the council was needed when it was being audited internally.

The auditors also want money to pay for training and recruitment and would not be able to complete the most recent audit before the council’s budget was finalised next year.

Neil Harris, an associate partner at EY, said he had a “huge amount of sympathy” for the points that Cllr Bradburn made.

But he said it is important to “deliver” high quality audits in an increasingly complex environment. The annual audit takes about 1,800 hours to complete.

Companies find that their staff leave local authority audit work to take more lucrative private sector contracts.

“For us in EY the most important thing for us is to safeguard the high professional standards you would expect from us to deliver a high quality audit,” he said.

Steve Richardson, the council’s director of finance and resources said it is a national issue at the very early stages.

“There will be no confirmation of the fee level for some time,” he said.

EY wants £232,877 for its audit of the 2019-20 year which is up £97,489 on estimates set by Public Sector Audit Appointments of £135,388.

They are also bidding for £86,000 more for the audit of the council’s 2018-19 accounts.

No other councillors commented and the committee decided to note the report.

Councillor in Milton Keynes puts spotlight on ballooning cost of private sector audits