MAYOR ORDERS INDEPENDENT REVIEW INTO ACCOUNTING PRACTICES OF FORMER OFFICE OF THE POLICE AND CRIME COMMISSIONER

Published 27 September 2024 at 9:30am

South Yorkshire’s Mayor Oliver Coppard has today responded to a report outlining concerns regarding the accounting practices of the former Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC). He has now ordered an independent review into what happened.

Following the transfer of police and crime commissioner functions to the role of the Mayor in May 2024, due diligence has been undertaken by the SYMCA Finance team who have found a significant error in the OPCC’s accounts and future year budgets.

 
Over recent years £65m has been spent on essential equipment such as kit for officers, vehicles and IT gear and services. Investments in this kind of kit, called capital spending, are often financed through borrowing and repaid over a longer period to help make the costs more affordable. The work undertaken by the SYMCA Finance team has identified that £16m of charges that should have been made to allow for the repayment of this debt so far have been missed and that future payments of £49m have not been included in spending plans going forward. These problems would appear to represent a fundamental error in accounting practices in the office of the former PCC.  These errors were not identified by annual audit checks from 2020 onwards.
 
The Mayor and officers from SYMCA are working at pace with the government, external auditors and SYP to mitigate the impact the required charges will have on budgets going forward. Those conversations have been positive and we will continue to work together to find solutions.

 
As part of a formal process, the Mayor has today received a report from the SYMCA Section 73 Officer (Executive Director of Resources and Investment) and Monitoring Officer (Director of Legal and Governance). That report is a statutory requirement where issues such as these are identified.  In response, the Mayor has accepted the recommendations of the Executive Director of Resources and Investment, and the Director of Legal and Governance, and asked them to commission an immediate independent review of the accounts of the former OPCC to understand how this issue arose and to ensure that no other errors have occurred.

 
South Yorkshire’s Mayor, Oliver Coppard said: “I am deeply frustrated by the problems uncovered by my team following the transfer of OPCC powers into my office earlier this year. 

 
“These problems would appear to represent a fundamental error in accounting practices in the office of the former PCC. 
 
“Those mistakes were missed by external and internal checks. 
 
“I have now instructed my office to bring in an external team to independently look at the processes that allowed those mistakes to go undetected for five years. 
 
“I am grateful to South Yorkshire Police and the government for the constructive conversations we have already had about finding a sustainable solution to both these new challenges and the ongoing pressures caused by tightened police budgets over the last 14 years.

“Protecting the communities of South Yorkshire will always remain my first and most vital priority.”

You can find the full report to the Mayor here.
You can find the Mayor's response to the report here.