CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee Paper 2 10/09/21

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR DECISION

²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ FINAL ACCOUNTS

Title:

Pre­pared by: DANIE RAL­PH, FIN­ANCE MAN­AGER DAV­ID CAMER­ON, DIR­ECT­OR OF COR­POR­ATE SERVICES

Pur­pose

To present and seek approv­al for the final accounts for ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ pri­or to their being sub­mit­ted to Audit Scot­land for final certification.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee is asked to:

a) Approve the final accounts pri­or to sub­mis­sion to Grant Thornton and Audit Scot­land for final certification.

Exec­ut­ive Summary

1. Grant Thornton, the Authority’s extern­al aud­it­ors, are expec­ted to give an unqual­i­fied audit opin­ion on the ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ fin­an­cial statements.

2. The Audit & Risk Committee’s role and respons­ib­il­it­ies as regards the final accounts pro­cess are set out in the Scot­tish Pub­lic Fin­ance Manu­al. The Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee is put in place to provide assur­ance on risk man­age­ment, gov­ernance and intern­al con­trol and to act as a source of inde­pend­ent advice on these mat­ters to the Account­able Officer and Board. The Committee’s role as regards the accounts is to sup­port the Account­able Officer with regard to their per­son­al respons­ib­il­it­ies for issues of risk, con­trol and gov­ernance through a pro­cess of con­struct­ive challenge.

3. The Com­mit­tee has pre­vi­ously con­sidered its exer­cise of this role for the ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ fin­an­cial year in con­sid­er­a­tion and approv­al of the Gov­ernance State­ment now included in the final accounts document.

4. The Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee reques­ted, fol­low­ing fur­ther dis­cus­sion of the draft accounts now presen­ted and in the con­text of any input from the aud­it­ors, to approve the accounts for sig­na­ture by the Chief Exec­ut­ive, who is also the Account­able Officer.

Danie Ral­ph danielralph@​cairngorms.​co.​uk 1^st Septem­ber 2021