The council has incurred the following costs in relation to the audit of the Statement of Accounts, certification of grant claims and statutory inspections provided by the council's external auditors.
| External Audit Costs | 2024/25
£000's | 2025/26
£000's |
|---|
| Fees payable to Forvis Mazars with regard to external audit services carried out by the appointed auditor for the year | 469 | 482 |
| Fees payable to KPMG for the certification of grant claims and returns for the year | 50 | 51 |
| Total | 519 | 533 |
The 2024/25 and 2025/26 external audit fees disclosed above for Forvis Mazars are based on the published PSAA scale fees. These fees may be subject to change, including as a result of the government's proposals to address the local audit backlog. The potential impact on the 2025/26 audit fee is not yet known.
The 2024/25 fees payable to KPMG was restated from the 2024/25 published accounts as the final agreed fees is disclosed in the table above.
The council's expenditure on schools is funded primarily by grant monies provided by the Department for Education (DfE), the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG). The DSG is ringfenced and can only be applied to meet expenditure properly included in the schools budget, as defined in the School Finance and Early Years (England) Regulations 2024. The schools budget includes elements for a range of educational services provided on an authority-wide basis and for the individual schools budget (ISB), which is divided into a budget share for each maintained school.
Details of the deployment of DSG receivable for 2025/26 are as follows:
| Dedicated Schools Grant | 2024/25 Total £000's | 2025/26 Central expenditure £000's | 2025/26 Individual schools budget £000's | 2025/26 Total £000's |
|---|
| Final DSG for before academy and high needs recoupment | (432,613) | | | (468,966) |
|---|
| Academy and high needs figure recouped for the year | 92,726 | | | 101,490 |
|---|
| Total DSG after academy and high needs recoupment | (339,887) | | | (367,476) |
|---|
| Plus: Brought forward from prior year | - | | | - |
|---|
| Agreed initial budgeted distribution in year | (339,887) | (83,484) | (283,992) | (367,476) |
|---|
| In-year adjustments | 3,000 | - | 3,605 | 3,605 |
|---|
| Final budget distribution for the year | (336,887) | (83,484) | (280,387) | (363,871) |
|---|
| Less: Actual central expenditure | 128,591 | 83,484 | - | 83,484 |
|---|
| Less: Actual ISB deployed to schools | 212,082 | - | 292,867 | 292,867 |
|---|
| In-year carry-forward | 3,786 | - | 12,480 | 12,480 |
|---|
| DSG Unusable Reserve as at end of 2024/25 | | | | 5,641 |
|---|
| DSG Unsable Reserve as at end of 2025/26 | | | | 18,121 |
|---|