Delayed Audits Spark Questions Over Birmingham, UK, Bankruptcy

Leading accounting professors are calling for a public inquiry into the bankruptcy declaration of the UK’s largest local authority, after much-delayed audited accounts showed the council had probably not gone bust.

“The accounts of Birmingham City Council now show, beyond any reasonable doubt, that Birmingham was never bankrupt, with the scale of the accounting misstatements that led to the bankruptcy absolutely unprecedented,” Glasgow University accounting lecturer James Brackley said by email Friday.

Brackley compared audited financial statements for fiscal year 2023-24 published in July with the figures the council used to declare bankruptcy in September 2023. His analysis ...