Lorna Baxter
Lorna Baxter is the Director of Finance and Section 151 Officer at Oxfordshire County Council.
The Section 151 Officer is a statutory post within local government as set out in the Local Government and Housing Act 1972 which requires the appointment of an officer to make arrangements for the proper administration of their financial affairs. The Section 151 Officer's responsibilities include making sure that expenditure is within the law; the accounts are prepared in accordance with regulations and comply with all other relevant legislation; the compilation of the accounts has followed proper accounting practices.
OxLEP is allocated public funding by government and this is required to be held and managed by a local authority acting as an accountable body. Oxfordshire County Council is the accountable body for OxLEP.
As Section 151 Officer of the accountable body, Lorna is required to provide reassurance on the activity of OxLEP which includes ensuring a local assurance framework has been agreed, meets the standards set out in the National Local Enterprise Partnership Assurance Framework and that policies and processes meet the minimum requirements set out in the best practice guidance.
Lorna is an experienced CIPFA-qualified accountant and has worked at Oxfordshire County Council for over thirty years, the last five of which have been in the role of Director of Finance.