The government legislated on 9 September 2024 to implement a series of statutory deadlines, or backstop dates, by which the audits of English Local Authority accounts must be complete. The first backstop date to complete audits of accounts relating to the 2022–23 financial year was set at 13 December 2024 and over 90% of English local authority accounts were published by this date, albeit often with disclaimed audit opinions.22 Subsequent to our evidence session MHCLG wrote to us and confirmed that approximately 95% of bodies had published audited accounts for 2022–23 by 13 December 2024, albeit that around 200 of them (approximately 45%) had disclaimed audit opinions.23 Further backstop dates are proposed for 2023–24 and beyond as follows: 2023–24 accounts are due by 28 February 2025; 2024–25 accounts are due by 28 February 2026; 2025–26 are due by 31 January 2027; 2026–27 are due by 30 November 2027; and 2027–28 are due by 30 November 2028.24 MHCLG aspires to have no disclaimed or qualified local authority accounts by the end of 2027–28. However, in the intervening years the expectation is that while the volume of missing data drops as audits are completed by the statutory backstop dates, this will result in an increase in the number of submissions that have limited or no audit assurance, as component auditors disclaim local authority accounts in order to meet the deadlines.25