Wrexham Council invite you to inspect any of their invoices, deeds, contracts or receipts

Wrexham Council’s yearly Audit of Accounts advert has been published and although the invite, despite being legally compliant, will likely have been missed by you.

You have the right to ‘inspect and make copies of the accounts’ of Wrexham Council, which includes looking at the books, deeds, contracts, bills and vouchers and receipts that refer to them.

The window to inspect such things is open between Monday 11th June and Friday 5th July (9:30am to 4:15pm), and the documents must involve the accounting year up to the 31st of March 2019.

This could include contracts signed by Wrexham Council last year, or that are active during that period. Councillor and Officer expenses forms, including the receipts, are also open for inspection. Deeds of property owned by Wrexham Council, and if there are active leases they are also open to viewing, plus receipts for land sold.

Previously we have exercised this right, looking at how much it cost to change a lightbulb in the markets, discovering the details of how Wrexham Council still had a connection to Eagles Meadow car parks via their lease, and of course which Councillor claimed £1.35 mileage to attend Remembrance Day.

We also used this route to inspect the contract between the council and Kingdom litter enforcement that revealed an ability to exercise a 28 day written notice for any breach, or three months to terminate ‘without reason’.

The process is straightforward, you contact Wrexham Council’s Head of Finance (contact details here) noting which documents you wish to inspect, and arrangements and appointments are then made.

Despite having well followed social media channels Wrexham Council have only tweeted about the inspection opportunity twice over the years. It does however  appear on the front page of Wrexham Council’s website.

Over the years thousands have been spent placing the notices for such inspections in the back of newspapers, and as usual Wrexham.com has received £0.00 for this promotion and highlighting of the notice.

This video of the ‘Mark Thomas Secret Map Of Britain’ TV special from 2002 recounts how the system works about 36 minutes in, with the basic principle of the law referenced now updated for modern Wales, and refers to a range of sentences of councillors in south wales back in 1999.

You can view an archive of Mark Thomas shows on this youtube link, with many of the topics covered still relevant today.