Public Sector Audit Appointments (PSAA) has published its scale of fees for 2018/19.
From 2018/19 the provisions of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 for the local appointment of auditors of the accounts apply. The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government specified PSAA as the appointing person for principal local government and police bodies, and, in accordance with the Act, PSAA therefore appoints auditors and sets scale audit fees for bodies that have opted into its national scheme.
PSAA has published the scale of fees for the audit of the 2018/19 accounts of principal local government and police bodies, with a 23 per cent reduction to audit fees for all those bodies opting in to the national scheme put in place by PSAA as the ‘Appointing Person’ under the provisions of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014. This adds to the fee reductions of 55 per cent in the period 2012/13 to 2017/18.
PSAA is a not-for-profit company established by the Local Government Association and made a distribution of surplus funds to principal local government and police bodies of approximately 15 per cent of current annual fees in 2017/2018. The distribution was made possible by the transfer of an element of the Audit Commission's retained earnings prior to its closure in March 2015 and by PSAA making further efficiencies since its establishment.
The 2018/19 scale of fees for individual audited bodies, are available on the PSAA website.
The audit fees payable in those councils that did not opt in to PSAA’s national scheme will be determined locally, based on those councils’ procurement and appointment processes.