Agency given extra time on its accounts

TROUBLED TOURISM agency Welcome to Yorkshire has been given an additional six months to publish its accounts as auditors continue to assess whether it remains a “going concern”.

The annual accounts of the company, which receives millions in public funding, for the 2018/19 financial year had been due to be published by December 31. But Welcome to Yorkshire has now been granted permission by Companies House to extend this to June, with the updated accounts now covering an additional six months up to September 2019.

The agency, which has struggled to deal with the fallout from the resignation of ex-chief executive Sir Gary Verity last March amid bullying and expense spending allegations, said the extension will allow it to “present a broader and more detailed picture of its financial position”.

In August last year, a report to regional council chief executives warned at that stage “it would seem unlikely that the auditor could easily conclude that Welcome to Yorkshire is a going concern” when the 2018/19 accounts were filed by the deadline of December 31.

In September, Welcome to Yorkshire took out a £500,000 loan from North Yorkshire County Council. It was subsequently revealed that the company, which does not have an overdraft facility, would have “run out of cash” that month without the loan and been unable to pay staff.

New board member Paul Grace, former head of customer banking at Yorkshire Bank, said: “We felt it prudent to extend Welcome to Yorkshire’s financial year end by six months to allow the new board to fully review our current financial position with a view to publishing our finances covering as much as 2019 as possible.”