Since this Government came to power last year, we have worked tirelessly to fix the broken local audit system in England, so people can trust that their council tax is being spent well. To ensure continued progress and that the Government’s wider programme of systemic reform is set up for success, we must speed up the process of rebuilding assurance at local bodies.
Clearing the backlog
The local audit backstop programme, comprising a series of six statutory publication deadlines for audited accounts, has continued to deliver against its statutory milestones. While the reset has meant many disclaimed audit opinions, as the Government made clear that we would last July, it has cleared the local audit backlog and made significant progress on restoring the discipline needed for timely publication of both unaudited and audited accounts.
After two backstops, there has been a significant improvement in the publication of audit opinions. As of 31 August 2025, 99% of local bodies had received and published audit opinions for all years up to 2022-23, and 94% had published audit opinions for 2023-24. Updated non-compliance lists for the latest backstop has been published today.
There has also been an improvement in the prerequisite publication of draft unaudited accounts. By 16 January 2025, just under 95% of bodies had published unaudited accounts ahead of the second backstop on 28 February 2025. Ahead of the 27 February 2026 backstop, 98% of bodies had already published their 2024-25 draft accounts as of 5 November 2025.
The advances that local bodies and audit firms alike have made in complying with the backstop programme have put the system in a much more secure and stable position. In turn, this will better enable the rebuilding of assurance and the implementation of wider reforms.
Progress on rebuilding assurance
Given the large number of disclaimed opinions, the backstops were announced alongside a five-year programme for building back assurance, with an aspiration that local audit recovers as soon as possible within that period.
Due to the scale of the local audit backlog and the limited capacity of audit firms and local bodies, the process of rebuilding assurance at local bodies was always going to be highly challenging. The process is technically difficult, resource-intensive and time-consuming, and the fundamental challenges facing the local audit system set out in the Government’s 2024 strategy remain a significant barrier to progress for some bodies. Both auditors and local bodies continue to navigate disproportionately complex financial reporting and audit requirements.
Our ambition is for local audit to recover assurance as early as possible, and we will continue to work with local bodies and audit firms to achieve this aim. However, despite significant efforts by all parties involved, progress has been slower than anticipated. It is now clear that the more immediate aspiration for the majority of disclaimed opinions driven by backstop dates to be limited to the first two years of this period—up to and including the 2024-25 backstop date of 27 February 2026—will not be realised. This will mean many local bodies continuing to receive disclaimed opinions for 2025-26 and 2026-27.