The Accounts and Audit (Amendment No. 2) (England) Regulations 2009

EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2003 (“the 2003 Regulations”) in relation to disclosure of remuneration for senior employees and senior police officers in the statement of accounts of certain bodies to which the 2003 Regulations apply.

The 2003 Regulations apply to “relevant bodies” in England, which are bodies whose accounts are required to be audited in accordance with Part 2 of the Audit Commission Act 1998, other than health service bodies, local probation boards and probation trusts.

Relevant bodies, other than “smaller relevant bodies” (whose gross income or expenditure (whichever is the higher) is less than £1 million per year), are required by the 2003 Regulations to produce a note accompanying their statement of accounts, specifying the number of employees whose total remuneration was more than £50,000 per year in that financial year, to be listed in brackets of a scale in multiples of £10,000. Regulation 4(3) of these Regulations extends this requirement to senior police officers (police officers above the rank of superintendent), and also changes the brackets in the scale to multiples of £5,000.

These Regulations also introduce a new requirement for the disclosure of the individual remuneration details of senior employees and relevant police officers for each financial year, under the following categories:

(i) salary, fees and allowances;

(ii) bonuses;

(iii) expenses allowance;

(iv) compensation for loss of employment;

(v) pension contribution;

(vi) any other emoluments; and

(vii) in the case of relevant police officers, any other payments made to them.

‘Employee’ includes a member of, or an office holder under, a relevant body. A senior employee is a person whose salary is more than £150,000 per year, or whose salary is at least £50,000 per year (to be calculated pro rata for a part-time employee) and who is:

(a) the designated head of paid service, a statutory chief officer or a non-statutory chief officer of a relevant body, those terms having the meaning given by the Local Government and Housing Act 1989;

(b) the head of staff for a relevant body which does not have a designated head of paid service; or

(c) any person having responsibility for the management of the relevant body.

A ‘relevant police officer’ is a chief constable, the Commissioners of the Metropolitan Police and the City of London Police, and any other police officer above the rank of superintendent whose salary is £150,000 or more per year.

The definition given to “contribution to the person’s pension” makes clear that the figure to be disclosed is the proportion of the relevant body’s contribution to the relevant contribution scheme which can be related to the senior employee or relevant police officer and does not include any contribution made by the senior employee or relevant police officer.

The obligation to disclose the remuneration of senior employees and relevant police officers does not apply for accounts prepared for the financial year 2009/10 in cases where the person concerned has the benefit of a confidentiality agreement in respect of the remuneration received.

An Impact Assessment has not been produced for this instrument as no impact on the private or voluntary sectors is foreseen.