As the Council's 2018-19 housing benefit subsidy application has recently been certified and it is two years since Audit Wales took responsibility for auditing the subsidy claims, this letter gives our perspective on the current situation.

Within this letter we have taken the opportunity to:

• reflect on the audit of the 2018-19 subsidy claim;
• confirm the current position of the audits of the 2019-20 and 2020-21 subsidy claims;
• consider the impact of delayed certification and claim processing errors; and
• recommend actions to be taken by the Council to improve the quality of the subsidy claim and to clear the certification backlog.