Parish meetings AGAR submission - exemption
step by step guidance

Is your Parish Meeting under £25,000 for gross income and gross expenditure and able to claim exemption?

If your answer to this is yes, this blog provides the information of what the authority needs to do. 

Complete the Annual Governance and Accountability Return (AGAR) Form2PM. Click on this link to download Form2PM. Please ensure you read the guidance notes on the AGAR. 

A Parish Meeting that wishes to declare itself exempt from the requirement for a limited assurance review must do so at a meeting held between 1 April and 30 June 2025.

It is recommended, though not legally required, to complete the internal audit before the council signs the annual governance and accounting statements - pages 5 and 6 of the AGAR. These statements must be filled out in draft so that the internal auditor can cross check the information/figures. The internal auditor should not fill in the governance and accounting statements for the council.  

Can the authority claim exemption?

In order to claim exemption from a limited assurance review an authority must meet certain specified criteria and submit to PKF Littlejohn the Certificate of Exemption, page 3 of the AGAR Form2 PM, which has been completed, approved and signed by the authority.

The exemption criteria are met if the authority can declare that:

·       The gross income and gross expenditure are both below £25,000 for the reporting financial year

·       The reporting year is not one of the authority’s first three years of existence

·       In relation to the preceding financial year (2023/24), the external auditor has not:

Ø  issued a public interest report in respect of the authority or any entity connected with it

Ø  made a statutory recommendation to the authority, relating to the authority or any entity connected with it

Ø  issued an advisory notice under paragraph 1(1) of Schedule 8 to the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 (“the Act”), and has not withdrawn the notice

Ø  commenced judicial review proceedings under section 31(1) of the Act

Ø  made an application under section 28(1) of the Act for a declaration that an item of account is unlawful, and the application has not been withdrawn nor has the court refused to make the declaration

·       The court has not declared an item of account unlawful after a person made an appeal under section 28(3) of the Act


What must the authority send to PKF Littlejohn when declaring exemption


The only information PKF Littlejohn needs for authorities claiming exemption is the

approved Certificate of Exemption, page 3 of the AGAR Form2PM, and updates to

contact details (where relevant) no later than 30th June 2025. 


There are no changes in the requirement for wet signatures on the AGAR.


Authorities certifying themselves as exempt SHOULD NOT send the full completed

AGAR to PKF Littlejohn, the external auditor.


If an authority is eligible to and wishes to claim exemption but it received notification

from PKF Littlejohn that it was chosen for intermediate testing as part of the random

5% sample, this does not affect the authority’s ability to claim exemption.  If this is the

case the authority should simply submit a copy of their exemption certificate as normal,

there is no impact of the 5% selection in these circumstances. 


Submission deadlines

The default submission deadline for the 2024/25 reporting season is Tuesday 1st July

2025.  Failure to do so will result in reminder letter(s) for which the Authority will be

charged £40 +VAT for each letter for all financially active smaller authorities.  If you wish

to extend your deadline to avoid receiving a chaser fee for late submission, please

contact PKF Littlejohn – there is no charge to change the submission deadline.


It is important to note, however, that:

no submission deadlines will be granted beyond 31 July 2025;

it will only be possible to extend submission deadlines by a maximum of four

weeks to 31 July 2025 providing sufficient justification explaining the exceptional need

for the extension is given;

PKF Littlejohn are only able to extend the submission deadline for exceptional reasons, and no extensions past 31 July 2025 will be given under any circumstances. If you do not submit your completed and signed exemption certificate to PKF Littlejohn by 31 July 2025 additional charges will apply for chaser letters issued;

a statutory recommendation will be issued to all financially active non-responding authorities that fail to submit their documents by 14 September 2025.  Statutory recommendations for non-response are charged at the standard fee rate depending on the authority’s expenditure banding and hence give rise to a minimum additional fee of £210 plus VAT. 


IMPORTANT:  If a financially active smaller authority is issued with a statutory

 recommendation (and/or a public interest report) for 2024/25 it will not be able to

claim exemption from a limited assurance review for 2025/26, regardless of whether it

meets all other criteria.


Publication requirements

Parish Meetings must publish on a suitable website or display in the local area various

documents as required by the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015 and the Local Audit

(Smaller Authorities) Regulations 2015. Parish Meetings without a website must display

the documents in the local area for 14 days. The following information needs to be

published as above before the 1st July 2025:


A copy of the Certificate of Exemption-page 3 of the AGAR approved, completed

and signed by the Parish Meeting

Section 1 - Annual Governance Statement-page 5 of the AGAR approved,

completed and signed the Parish Meeting

Section 2 - Accounting Statements-page 6 of the AGAR approved, completed

and signed by the Parish Meeting

The Parish Meeting must publish numerical and narrative explanations for

significant variances in the accounting statements on page 6. Guidance is provided in

the Practitioners’ Guide which may assist.

Notice of the period for the exercise of public rights and other information

required by Regulation 15 (2), Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015.


WHAT EXEMPT PARISH MEETINGS NEED TO DO TO ADVERTISE THE PERIOD DURING

WHICH ELECTORS AND INTERESTED PERSONS MAY EXERCISE RIGHTS RELATING TO

THE ANNUAL ACCOUNTS


The Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 and the Accounts and Audit Regulations

2015 require that:

1) The statement of accounts prepared by the authority (i.e. the Annual

Governance & Accountability Return (AGAR) Form 2PM), the accounting records for the

financial year to which the audit relates and all books, deeds, contracts, bills, vouchers,

receipts and other documents relating to those records must be made available for

inspection by any person interested, during a period of 30 working days set by the

smaller authority (i.e. the parish meeting) and including the first 10 working days of July.


2) The period referred to in paragraph (1) starts with the day on which the period

for the exercise of public rights is treated as having been commenced i.e. the day

following the day on which all of the obligations in paragraph (3) below have been

fulfilled.


3) The Chair must, on behalf of that authority, publish (which must include

publication on the authority’s website where the parish meeting has a website):

a) the Accounting Statements (i.e. Section 2 of the AGAR Form 2PM),

accompanied by:

i) a declaration, signed by that officer to the effect that the statement of accounts

will not be audited on account of that authority’s self-certified status as exempt, unless

either a request for an opportunity to question the auditor about the authority’s

accounting records under section 26(2) or an objection under section 27(1) of the Act,

results in the involvement of the local auditor; 

ii) the Annual Governance Statement (i.e. Section 1 of the AGAR Form 2PM); and

iii) the Certificate of Exemption (i.e. Page 3 of the AGAR Form 2PM); and

 

b) a statement that sets out—

i) the period for the exercise of public rights;

ii) details of the manner in which notice should be given of an intention to inspect

the accounting records and other documents;

iii) the name and address of the local auditor;

iv) the provisions contained in section 25 (inspection of statements of accounts

etc), section 26 (inspection of documents etc) and section 27 (right to make objections

at audit) of the Act, as they have effect in relation to the authority in question;  



HOW DO YOU DO IT?


1) You will meet statutory requirements if you fully and accurately complete the

notice of public rights pro forma in this document, and if the parish meeting has a

website, publish the following documents on the website, the day before the public

rights period commences. It the parish meeting has no website, the following

documents must simply be displayed in the local area for 14 days:


a) the approved Sections 1 and 2 of Form 2PM of the AGAR; and


b) the completed Notice of Public Rights and Publication of Annual Governance &

Accountability Return (Exempt Authority). Please note that PKF Littlejohn have pre-completed it

with the following suggested dates: Tuesday 3 June – Monday 14 July 2025. (The latest

possible dates that comply with the statutory requirements are Tuesday 1 July –

Monday 11 August 2025); and 


c) the notes which accompany the Notice (Local authority accounts: a summary of

your rights).


Where the authority has answered ‘No’ to any assertions on Section 1, as stated on the

face of Section 1 of the AGAR, a sufficiently detailed explanation of the reasons must be

published with the AGAR on the authority’s website.


Click on this link to download the notice of public rights and publication of annual

governance & accountability return (exempt Parish Meeting) accounts for the year

ending 31 March 2025


Click on this link to download as a PDF


To contact PKF Littlejohn email sba@pkf-l.com or call 020 7516 2200. Visit the PKF Littlejohn webpage.







What the council is required to do
Where the higher of gross income or gross expenditure exceeded £25,000 but did not exceed £6.5 million; or where the gross income and gross expenditure was £25,000 or less but that are unable to certify as exempt or have requested a limited assurance review