Every council must, by Law, have an annual audit. This is a process whereby some independent accountants (called “auditors”) examine the Council’s finances and verify that they are correct. The primary reason for this process is to prevent fraud.
Reform-led North Northants Council (NNC) is having problems with its latest audit. This was highlighted at a meeting of NNC’s Audit and Governance Committee on Monday 23rd February 2026.
Among the problems found by auditors Grant Thornton were:
- a £6.64 million difference between the bank statements and the amount reported in NNC’s general ledger.
- a Corby bank account worth £4.3m that could not be reconciled.
- £74 million of Section 106 funding paid by developers could not be properly accounted for, for both this year and last year.
- An accumulated deficit of £40 million in the Dedicated Schools Grant.
