Amyas Morse, the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG), has
today qualified the financial accounts of the Biotechnology and
Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) over how the Council
has accounted for two of its sponsored institutes, the Institute of
Food Research and the Babraham Institute.
The results of these two sponsored bodies have not been
consolidated in the Council's financial statements for 2009-2010.
The audit opinion of the C&AG is that, under the newly applied
International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), these bodies
should be treated as subsidiaries of the Council and therefore
their financial results should have been consolidated in the
Council's statements.
Under the existing arrangements, the BBSRC has control over the
appointment and removal of the Board of Trustees for the Institute
of Food Research and the Babraham Institute. While in practice the
BBSRC does not seek to influence the operations of its institutes,
and actions have been taken in recent years with a view to
increasing their independence, the Council's intentions are not
relevant to current accounting regulations and therefore these two
bodies are deemed to be subsidiaries. The BBSRC intends to move all
Institutes to an independent governance structure from April
2011.
The Council accepts in principle that the two bodies should be
consolidated under the new accounting requirements, but did not
consider it cost-effective to make the necessary accounting
adjustments to consolidate the bodies into its 2009-10 financial
statements, given the changes it expects to make to the governance
arrangements in the near future.
Apart from this issue, the C&AG is satisfied that the
2009-10 accounts have been prepared in accordance with the
appropriate accounting and reporting requirements.
4 April 2011