Fact-Check

Political leaflets are not subject to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) requirements that adverts are legal, decent, honest and truthful.

But you can check out the Facts here.

If you get any leaflets with statements or allegations you doubt, send them over and I will gladly Fact-Check them for you.

FACT-CHECK SUMMARY

Claim:’huge discrepency in the council’s finances’

Claim:’Surrey Heath Council forced to restate their 2019/20 accounts to write down their Reserves by £39m’

Fact-Check: There is no ‘loss’ of £40,000,000 to be concerned about, There is no ‘write down of reserves’ to be concerned about.

WHAT WE ARE FACT CHECKING

This was posted on Facebook 16th February 2022:

This was published on Twitter 27th April 2022:

The Facts

There was a basic typographic error in the accounts. I would fully expect it would have been picked up when the auditors eventually got around to auditing the accounts (there is a big backlog in the account auditing industry).

In the Financial Year to 31 March 2020, there were movements in the Reserves figures as a result of changes transferring the Council’s investments property investments in The Square from the Jersey Property Unit Trust (JPUT).

The draft accounts from December 2021 had the following graphic to summarise the Balance Sheet on page 12:

The way to read it is the Net Assets (arrows pointing to the central box) are made up of:

Non-current assets:   £174m
Non-current liabilities:  -£ 98m
Long-term liabilities & Provisions:  -£107m

Net Assets: £174m – £98m – £107m = -£31m

This £31m being made up of (box with arrow pointing from the central box):

Usable reserves:    £ 80m
Unusable reserves:  -£ 111m

Net Assets: £80m – £111m =   -£ 31m

The problem was that both reserve figures were inflated by £39m.

There was no effect on the net figures as they cancelled each other out.

The revised draft acccounts from April 2022 have corrected the typos. They have also been updated to reflect the vary latest figures so there are some other small differences:


The way to read it is the Net Assets are made up of:

Non-current assets:   £173m
Non-current liabilities:  -£ 97m
Long-term liabilities & Provisions:  -£103m

Net Assets: £173m – £97m – £103m = -£27m

This -£27m being made up of:

Usable reserves:  £41m (the inflated £39m has been removed)
Unusable reserves: -£68m (the extraneous -£39m has been removed plus £4m of other ajustments)

Net Assets: £41m – £68m = -£27m

 

Stuart Black, February 2022.