External auditors Grant Thornton identified four significant weaknesses in Kent County Council’s use of resources for 2025-26, covering adult social care costs, special educational needs spending, the Oracle Cloud IT programme and the effectiveness of the council’s own audit committee, in a report to the Governance and Audit Committee on 15 October 2026.
Kent County Council’s external auditors identified four significant weaknesses in the authority’s arrangements for securing value for money during 2025-26, according to an audit findings report presented to the Governance and Audit Committee on 15 October 2026.
Grant Thornton, the council’s external auditor, said it had completed its value for money work and found weaknesses in four areas: financial sustainability in relation to adult social care spending; financial sustainability in relation to special educational needs (SEN) spending and the Dedicated Schools Grant; governance, specifically the role and effectiveness of the Governance and Audit Committee including member development, behaviours and cohesion; and economy, efficiency and effectiveness in relation to the Oracle Cloud Programme.
The weaknesses in adult social care and SEN spending were carried over from previous years. The governance and Oracle weaknesses are new for 2025-26.
Oracle Cloud programme
The auditors said phase two of the council’s Oracle Cloud Programme had been delayed, that additional funding had been agreed and that a lessons-learnt review had been commissioned. They said the programme’s slippage and rising costs showed its delivery arrangements “have not been optimal”, and recommended that the review’s findings be built into how the programme is run and that the Policy and Resources Cabinet Committee receive regular formal updates until implementation is assured.
The new system also affected the audit itself. The audit findings report said the auditors experienced “significant delays in obtaining supporting transaction information for debtors and creditors at the beginning of the audit, with significant balances unable to be substantiated.” The report attributed these delays “primarily” to “user inexperience with the new Oracle Fusion system”, adding that the issues were eventually resolved.
The auditors said their anticipated opinion on the council’s financial statements would be unmodified, and that they planned to issue their audit report shortly after the 15 October committee meeting. However, several matters remained outstanding at the time of the report, including receipt of component auditor confirmations, completion of technical points raised in a financial statement review, receipt of a signed management representation letter, and receipt and review of an updated Annual Governance Statement.
DSG deficit and adult social care
The Dedicated Schools Grant deficit and adult social care pressures were both identified as significant weaknesses under the financial sustainability heading. The council’s own Annual Governance Statement, also presented to the committee, separately noted that the DSG deficit had grown to £130.5 million and described it as the council’s “most substantial financial risk”. The same document recorded that the council’s final revenue overspend for 2025-26 was £22.7 million, reduced from earlier forecasts following the introduction of tighter spending controls and a temporary recruitment freeze.
Audit committee effectiveness flagged
The identification of the Governance and Audit Committee’s own role and effectiveness as a significant weakness is notable. The auditors said detailed commentary would be set out in a separate Auditor’s Annual Report presented alongside the audit findings. Minutes from the committee’s previous meeting in July 2026, also considered on 15 October, recorded that a motion to add a dedicated agenda item on the DSG deficit to the work programme had been put to a vote and failed.
The council had not published the minutes of the meeting at the time of writing, so the committee’s decision is not yet on the public record.