MACHYNLLETH Town Council accounts, which have been missing since December 2019, will be released publicly after the next meeting this month.

In the 27 June meeting, finance officer Nicole Beaumont told councillors the first two of the three years, 2019/20 and 2020/21, of missing accounts have been audited, but the final year was still “outstanding”

Mayor Cllr Jeremy Paige said the three years of accounts would go to the next finance meeting, before going to full council next month and being published on the website “no later” than the July meeting, but “hopefully earlier”.

Incoming council clerk Dewi Jones said: “I don’t have them with me, but we have the accounts done for the three years. We don’t have the internal audit report for the third year yet.

“When we fill in the government report, we need to answer the question why we didn’t have an internal audit in place for those three years, because we didn’t. My advice would be to say that we have one in place moving forward, but that we have the three years of audited accounts now.”

Cllr Ann MacGarry asked whether or not the audit was unqualified or qualified.

Mr Jones said: “Unqualified audit is a good one, where an external auditor says there is nothing wrong. I don’t think the internal auditor doesn’t say qualified or unqualified, they point out any issues.

“The external auditor then says qualified or unqualified. We are definitely getting a qualified audit because handing them in late is enough to get qualified.”

Cllr Paige said they are “nearly there” with resolving the issue, praising the “phenomenal amount of work” by the clerk and finance officer.

Before the meeting, Cllr Gareth Jones told the Cambrian News: “It remains to be seen whether the report will answer every question Machynlleth residents are asking. In particular, what went wrong in the first place? Why did it go wrong?”