Common Space has reported on City of Edinburgh Council utilisation of the ‘statutory override’, which is a legal mechanism to waive compliance with international accounting standards. Statutory overrides are used in councils Lobo loans with RBS, which due to changes in international accounting standards now have a significantly greater expense on local authority balance sheets than before. Joel Benjamin of Research for Action described the use of the statutory override as: “A get out of jail free card for auditors and Government desperate to avoid the prospect of further bankruptcies of debt laden town halls on their watch”

Commonspace