AMMANFORD Town Council will be accepting the recommendations provided by Audit Wales in its report published in September.

At a public meeting held at Ammanford Town Hall on Wednesday, October 25, the town council discussed the damning report which stated that there were significant shortcomings in its financial reports and that around £800,000 was not properly accounted for since 2016.

The council had been filing reports late, failed to provide records for its use of cash and did not publish required documents on its website. It was also highlighted that the accounts for 2017-18 were amended before being submitted and it was unclear whether this was done before or after the chairperson signed them off.

Members of the public – which included former members of Ammanford Town Council – were positive towards the current members of the council, praising them for their work in trying to resolve all the issues and working to bring the council’s reputation back.

At the meeting, it was proposed by Cllr Anthony Jones to reject the report itself due to, what was claimed as a number of inaccuracies. These, it was stated, included 'incorrect information' given to Audit Wales such as the work of the clerk in 2018-2019, who was praised by councillors for her year of service trying to resolve the earlier issues at the council. 

It was also claimed that there were inaccuracies about the date of employment of the current clerk and stated there was no handover, despite there being an extensive handover.

The proposal was seconded by Cllr Calum Higgins and was due to be voted on by the attending councillors, but this did not happen.

The recommendations made by Audit Wales were read out by mayor Emyr John and questions were raised about how these seven recommendations would be implemented with systems being put in place.

One of the recommendation was that the council should put appropriate procedures in place so that the accounts are completed by June 30 each year. However, the councillors admitted that this was not able to happen this year as they had not been able to access the relevant documents and bank accounts as the clerk was away. Cllr John said that they put in a notice that they were not going to be able to complete the reports by the deadline.

Cllr Higgins said that they were in the process of getting the statements and invoices put on a new system as this had previously been started by chief of finance, Cllr Stephen Davies, who was absent from the meeting, and were working with the relevant companies to gain access to the accounts needed to be able to complete the reports.

It was unanimously voted on to accept the recommendations, which can be seen in full at https://www.audit.wales/publication/failures-financial-management-and-governance-ammanford-town-council

The councillors thanked the members of the public who attended the meeting for the way it was conducted and encouraged members of the public to attend the meetings either in person or remotely and will be holding their committee meetings on the first Monday of each month, with the full council meeting on the second Monday of each month.