It could take three more years for a council's accounts to be fully audited, elected members have been told.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council's accounts for 2024/25 have now been signed off, meaning the authority is up to date in terms of producing audited accounts.

But as has been the case for every year since 2020/21, external auditors have only been able to give a 'disclaimed' opinion on the 2024/25 accounts, as there has not been enough time to properly examine them.

This is partly due to the government setting a deadline of 27 February for the delivery audit opinions on local authority accounts, as part of efforts to tackle a national backlog.

Fully audited accounts are needed to ensure a council's finances are in order and that taxpayers are getting value for money. The local government audit regime has been plagued with delays and increased costs since the coalition government replaced the Audit Commission with a privatised system in 2015.

Members of the city council's audit and standards committee were told that while the authority no longer has any outstanding accounts, it will take more time to bring things back to 'normality' .

Nick Edmonds, corporate director for resources, said: "It means we're up to date in terms of all of the accounts that were outstanding, up to 2024/25. Obviously, the opinions on the accounts for the last few years are disclaimed opinions, and that forms part of the build back process at a national level.

"Discussions are taking place with external auditors and the team as to how we bring things back to normality, in terms of getting the full audit completed, over the next few years. That will take some time because of the volume of work that needs doing. A process is being developed to deal with that.

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"It's probably going to be three years before we get fully signed-off audits. But each year the scrutiny we're able to do will increase."

External auditors Forvis Mazars identified a 'significant weakness' in the city council's financial sustainability arrangements relating to the dedicated schools grant deficit, which had risen to £22.4 million by March 2025.

The auditors also noted previously identified significant weaknesses relating to the reliance on exceptional financial support, and the statutory financial reporting capacity.

While the city council has major financial challenges, the delays affecting local government audit have affected authorities across the country.

Just one per cent of councils in England had their 2022/23 accounts signed off in time in, leading to the goverment allowing auditors to give disclaimed opinions in order to reduce this backlog.

Monitoring officer James Doble told the committee that it had been a 'travesty of the national audit regime' that things were allowed to get so bad.

Councillor Andy Platt said: "The previous system seemed to work very well, but then they gave it to these private sector companies and it went haywire. We always find out eventually that privatisation doesn't work."

The city council was one of 33 non-exempt bodies that failed to publish their audited accounts for 2024/25 by the 27 February deadline set by government. Forvis Mazars has recommended the city council makes a number of improvements to prevent similar delays in future.

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