AN influential spending body has called for urgent action after financial crises across local authorities led to the government's financial watchdog being unable to sign off annual accounts for the first time in its history.

That is likely to strike a chord across Thurrock Council, which has failed to publish audited accounts for several years.

In its report published today on the Whole of Government Accounts 2022-23, the Commons' public accounts committee (PAC) warns the government's ability to effectively monitor financial pressures within local authorities has been undermined, at a time when many councils are already in poor financial health.

The Whole of Government Accounts should provide an accurate picture of the UK's public finances for Parliament and the wider public.

But for the first time in the WGA's history, the National Audit Office has been unable to sign them off - after only 10% of English local authorities submitted reliable data for the year, with 187 failing to submit at all.

Now the PAC claims the government is "flying blind" on struggling council finances amid an unprecedented local audit crisis, and fears the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) will fail to foresee issues in local government finance and intervene where appropriate.

Today's report warns of a lack of financial transparency for local authorities, with the overall impact of the missing data estimated as net income being overstated in the WGA by £34.4bn, and net debt overstated by £31.7bn.

A statement from Thurrock Council says: "The Council is exempt from meeting the backstop deadline of the 13 December, 2024 for publishing audited Statement of Accounts for 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 financial years but has, for transparency purposes, published the draft accounts; which represents good practice.

"The Exemption Notice and draft accounts can be found on our website at: https://www.thurrock.gov.uk/our-accounts-and-funds/statement-of-accounts"