The chair of the National Association of Local Councils (NALC) has pledged to improve training and guidance to local councils, after the Audit Commission reported 11% of parish councils – 1,015 in total -  had their accounts qualified in 2013/14.

This marks an increase from 8% of parish councils whose accounts were unqualified the previous year, and 74 parish councils have had their figures qualified for three successive years, the Commission found.

As a result of the Coalition's reform of local audit, small local bodies with annual turnovers less than £25,000 will become exempt from routine annual audit from 2017.

Marcine Waterman, the Audit Commission's controller of Audit said: ‘No provision was made in the local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 for the national collection and reporting of the audits of local government bodies.'