Every town and parish council in England has to complete an Annual Governance and Accountability Return (AGAR) after the end of the financial year. It’s the council’s yearly statement that its money was handled properly and its governance is sound. The process is predictable once you know the parts — the pressure comes from the deadlines and from pulling the evidence together.

What’s in the AGAR

The AGAR has a few core components:

  • Section 1 — the Annual Governance Statement (AGS): a set of nine assertions the council agrees to, covering effective financial management and internal control, compliance with laws and proper practices, risk management, an adequate system of internal audit, giving electors their rights, acting on matters raised by audit, and (where relevant) its role as a sole trustee.
  • Section 2 — the Accounting Statements: the year’s figures — balances, receipts and payments (or income and expenditure), assets and borrowing.
  • The Annual Internal Audit Report: completed by your independent internal auditor.
  • The external auditor’s review — unless the council is exempt (see below).

Exemption for the smallest councils

A council whose gross income and gross expenditure are both £25,000 or less can usually certify itself exempt from a limited-assurance external review — but it must still complete the AGAR, have an internal audit, publish the information, and give electors their rights. Exemption is from the external review, not from the duty to account.

The key dates (check the current year)

The timetable shifts slightly each year and is set by the external auditor regime (SAAA / PKF Littlejohn), so always confirm the current dates — but the shape is consistent:

  • Approve the AGAR at a council meeting after year-end (31 March), typically by late June / early July.
  • Publish the AGAR and open the period for the exercise of public rights — a 30-working-day window that must include the first ten working days of July — so electors can inspect the accounts.
  • Submit to the external auditor (if not exempt) by the published deadline, and publish the concluded AGAR (commonly by 30 September).

Miss the public-rights window or the submission date and you can end up in breach, so the dates matter as much as the figures.

Make the evidence easy

Most of the AGAR stress is evidence-gathering — the risk assessment, the internal-control checks, the figures, the minutes approving it all. When those records live in one system through the year, the AGAR becomes an assembly job, not an archaeology dig.

How Town Desk helps

Town Desk won’t file your AGAR for you, but it keeps the evidence behind it in one place: the risk register (for the risk assertion), spend requests and approvals plus the append-only audit log (for internal control), the asset register, and your minutes and decisions. Each area exports as a branded, print-ready pack — so when the AGAR and the public-rights window come round, the numbers and the governance trail are ready, not scattered across spreadsheets.

See the finance & governance features, or book a demo.

General information for UK town & parish councils, not legal advice. For the authoritative forms, assertions and dates, see the current-year AGAR and guidance from your external auditor (PKF Littlejohn via SAAA) and the JPAG Practitioners’ Guide.