Troubled Oakham Town Council is now facing problems over its audit bill after a councillor raised concerns which has led to extra accountancy fees. 

Oakham Town Council (OTC) has been in turmoil for several months due to fall-outs between councillors and staff and the latest bone of contention is an issue with the audit bill. 

Every town council must have an internal and external audit to make sure it is being run properly in accordance with law and this year's OTC external audit faced problems partly due to the clerk and his deputy being ill during the audit period. 

During the audit period, Councillor Martin Brookes asked questions of the auditor and raised an objection about how the authority had procured a contract for the renovation of some public toilets in the town. 

Accountancy firm Moore charged an extra £1,300 for looking at the issue on top of the £1,365 fixed audit fee. 

Cllr Brookes says he had retracted the questions of the auditor, but the accountancy firm have said the work was carried out before the retraction request. They said a senior staff member had worked on the questions at an industry rate of £355 per hour and the cost should have been £2,100 but they had reduced this to £1,300. 

Because Cllr Brookes used his council email address to communicate with the auditor, others within the council are insisting that Coun Brookes acted as a councillor rather than a member of the public, a claim he disputes. 

The auditors found that while there was no evidence that relevant legislation and regulatory requirements had not been met, there were some procedural issues, such as the council approving the annual governance and accountability return before it had been completed by the clerk. It concluded that it was also unable to confirm that budgeting processes are adequate. 

At a meeting held earlier this month town clerk Chris Evans said: "No clerk is ever happy with their audit, and I am not happy with this one. But obviously, without going into details, circumstances meant I was unfortunately away for two months when the audit was being carried out and made it very difficult for the office to get the external audit replies in time for the commands of the system which are quite ruthless from April to August. 

"So, it's not great but I would say most of its administrative mistakes rather than anything serious." 

He said he was 'proud' of the way the officer had got through the audit 'at a very difficult time'. 

Cllr Brookes said he had followed procedure in asking the auditor questions and had first asked questions of the council but had received no reply.  

Cllr Brookes has told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) he has officially challenged the bill presented by Moore. 

Since the meeting, the clerk told the LDRS: "The concern with this matter is that Cllr Brookes did this using his council email account even though he did state he was acting as an elector. Moore, our external auditor worked on these questions and thus the council incurred a charge. 

"The issue the council had was that Moore may well take the use of council resources as an endorsement of these questions from the council. I have therefore been asked to write to the relevant authorities and make clear that the views represented in this email are not endorsed by the council." 

At an extraordinary meeting of OTC on 22 October, Cllr Brookes' actions were discussed with a proposal to send the matter to Rutland County Council's monitoring officer for an investigation agreed. This follows a number of complaints already made and an investigation carried out this summer by the county council into ongoings at OTC which found there are 'significant underlying issues at the council' and recommended immediate governance training. 

The councillors will meet with the county council's chief legal officer this week to discuss its problems.