The scary situation of London councils' cash

Croydon and Birmingham bankrupt. Other town halls in financial turmoil. Yet their accounts are strewn with errors and hit by delays

- Simon Hunt

FOR a glimpse into the severity of the state of our ailing public services, look no further than London councils. A perusal of the annual accounts pages of council websites across the capital lays bare a host of mistakes, excuses and delays that makes for pretty alarming reading.

Just seven of London’s 32 boroughs have published a set of audited accounts for 2022. You read that right — seven. If that wasn’t bad enough, some councils have not had their accounts audited since as far back as 2018.

To make matters worse, the excuses they come up with for not doing so make increasingly desperate reading. Ealing cited a delay due to “resourcing issues” within the external audit teams at Deloitte. Sutton blamed it on troubles valuing pensions liabilities, while Hounslow and Harrow said it was because of difficulties valuing infrastructure. Bromley, who have not published since 2020, said there was a delay to their 2021 accounts because of a delay to their 2020 accounts, while Waltham Forest gave up on an explanation altogether and just said there were “a variety of complex factors”.