It was not until 2023 that Slough’s external auditor, Grant Thornton, issued a ‘disclaimer of opinion’ for the local authority’s long-awaited 2018/19 accounts. Documents from Grant Thornton said this meant ‘effectively, no audit assurance’. Slough council has not had a ‘clean’ audit opinion since the 2017/18 financial year, papers presented to an audit and corporate governance committee on Wednesday (July 22) said. A strategy for regaining assurance was presented at the Observatory House meeting – but this plan sets out that the council could wait another six years to get a clean audit opinion. “The audit opinion would always be impacted, until we can get to regaining assurance, by those financial years where we haven’t got that assurance,” he added.