Transcript

Good evening. It's Monday 17 June 2024 and this is the regular meeting of the Rotherd District Council's Audit and Standards Committee. I'm Councillor Brian Grayson, the Chair of the Committee. I'd like to welcome everyone in the Chamber and online to the meeting. Reminder to members on using the microphone correctly and the need to speak up so that those watching online or viewing the webcast later can clearly hear what they are saying. While on the subject of clarity, could members please raise their hands clearly when voting and keep them up, keep them raised until it's clear that the Clerk has counted them. Thank you. We're joined in the Chamber this evening by Andrew Vallance, Deputy Chief Executive and Section 151 Officer. Mark Adams, Head of Digital Customer Services and the Everett Corporate Program Risk and Improvement Manager. Gary Angel, the Council's Internal Audit Manager. Did I just forget someone? No. And Louise Hollingsworth from Democratic Services and Clerk to the Committee. Online this evening, we have Lorna Ford, the Chief Executive of Rotherd District Council and also Linda Walker, our Monitoring Officer, Interim Monitoring Officer. We also have a member of the Committee, Councillor Simon McGurk, who's joined us online. Welcome also to Patrick Farmer, our Independent Member for Audit Matters and to Bob Brown and Rose Durban, our Independent Members on Standards. Thank you. We're also joined online by Darren Wells, our Lead External Auditor from Grant Thornton. I don't think I've forgotten anyone. Do I have the Committee's authority to sign the minutes as a correct raffle of the last meeting? Yes, thank you. That's the last two meetings. There's also the one on the night of Annual Council when somebody elected me as Chair. Right. Are there any apologies for absence, please? Yes, Chair, we've had apologies from Councillor Peirce. Thank you. Any additional items? No, there are none. Right. And Item 4, to receive any disclosures by members of Disclosable Pecuniary Interests and other registrable interests and non-registrable interests in matters on the agenda and the nature of any interest and details of any dispensations obtained. Members are reminded of the need to repeat their declaration immediately prior to the commencement of the item in question. Are there any declarations? No? Thank you. Right, moving on to Part A, the Standards reports. Agenda Item 5, Code of Conduct, Complaints, Monitoring and Other Standards Matters. And this is Linda Walker going to be introducing this report online. Thank you, Linda. Over to you. And this is just the regular six-monthly report to let you know how we've been progressing with the Member Code of Conduct complaints. Since the last meeting, we have our new Deputy Monitoring Officer, who's Suzanne Antropas, which many of you will have met. And she is leading on dealing with the complaints. As you can see from the report, we've had 22 complaints within this period of time. And I think the thing that's really interesting to highlight from them is the number of parish councillors that they've involved. So I think we've got six district councillors where there's been a complaint. And we've got 26 parish or town councillors where there's been complaints. Sometimes one complaint might relate to a number of different councillors, which is why it pans out like that. As you'll see, 19 were dismissed and the others resulted in things like training and apology. As you know, the sanctions under the Code of Conduct are quite limited. And we're to try and deal with as many of the complaints at a local level rather than escalating the matters. We did have particular difficulties with one of the town councils. And I think you're aware of actually some of the issues, Chair, that we have had with this. What we're trying to do is rather than just sort of deal with them on a hard hoc basis, if we have a number of complaints about the same town or parish councillor, we are trying to look at that sort of in the round and look at what improvements can be made and what help perhaps the clerk of the parish can do as well so that we can try and resolve this on a long-term basis rather than just on a one-off basis. Of the various complaints that we had, the independent persons, one or other, was consulted in each case. And they agreed with the action that we took in respect of those matters. We've also, just to mention to you, that there has been some training. I came down in December and was involved in the parish conference. And I provided some training on the member Code of Conduct. And that, I think, was quite well received. And the members who attended that were very engaged. And we did try and issue some other information for people who haven't attended. And I think going forward, as far as that parish council is concerned, although it was well attended, I think perhaps this coming year we can publicise it a little bit more and try and get even more people to come to that meeting. Because as I say, we are having more of a problem with parish councillors than district councillors. So I think that's a good chance to actually help them with training and understanding what their obligations are. Then I also, in January, did some training online for members. And again, that was well attended and new members were engaged. I think as an ongoing thing, although it doesn't say this in the report, I am trying to engage more. And I'm sort of working at a distance. But just some of the guidance that we issue, and also if a certain issue arises, we do try and deal with that at that time so that members are gradually getting used to the new Code of Conduct and what their obligations are. I think going forward, there's a number of lessons learned from some of the cases that we've dealt with. And I'm working with Suzanne to think of new ways and new ways perhaps of delivering training and awareness to members so that keeping things on the right lines. And I hope that that's been helpful. So that's basically all I wanted to say about that. It's a fairly brief report, but I think it is extremely useful that you are monitoring these matters. And the table at the end of the report does set out the various complaints that we've had and gives a little bit of information. Because obviously, they're anonymous and just give some information about what the themes were. And social media, for example, is a very common one. And that's the same throughout a number of authorities. So yes, that's basically the position. Thank you, Linda. Before I open it up to any questions, thank you for the very subtle reminder to me that I'd forgotten, as a member of Bexhill Town Council, I should be declaring an interest. Bearing in mind, I think there was only reference from you to that particular council. So yes, sorry, I forgot to declare an interest of being a member of Bexhill Town Council. Any questions for Linda on the complaints report? Yes, Councillor Biggs. Evening, Linda. I represent four parishes. And what parish council and one of these four parishes has been waiting six months to get his case sorted out, and he's not very happy about it. Can you tell me, it's difficult, I don't want to name the person, but six months is rather a long time, isn't it, to get a case sorted out? It is, but what I can say is that we're up to date. Sorry, I'm a bit of echo. We are up to date on all the complaints. So perhaps you could message me separately and tell me which one it is, because I am surprised, because as far as I'm aware, there's only one outstanding matter, and there are particular reasons for that. I know Suzanne's dealing with it. Suzanne's dealing with it, and I had the email last week, so that is still outstanding. Right. Well, perhaps we can have a discussion about what it is, because I'm only aware of one, and there are reasons for that. Shall I get him to email you directly? Yeah, do that. That would be the easiest, yeah. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? No, I'd just like to again thank Bob Brown and Rose Durban for their help on these matters. I know they get consulted by Linda. Thank you for that. Right, thank you, Linda. I'll ask about them as well, because they're always very accommodating and helpful, and it's great to have that other perspective. Sometimes we get a bit close, so they are extremely helpful. So I'll add my thanks. Thank you, and just to note that report, yes? Noted, thank you. Agenda item six, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman Complaints Monitoring, and that's Mark Adams to introduce his report. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Chair, and good evening, everyone. So I'd like to introduce the six-monthly Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman Complaint Monitoring Report for June. So the reporting period covers from the 13th of May, sorry, 13th of February until the 20th of May. There have been five complaints, which are detailed in the report. Four of these were not investigated, and one of these has been upheld. The upheld complaint does relate to a particularly sensitive matter around burial and torment location, and our contractors' poor performance in how they left the grave site in terms of their plant machinery visible during the service. So this is an isolated case, and we have apologised to the family in relation to this and are looking at compensation in relation to this. In terms of lessons learned, we've looked at these complaints and processes can be reviewed at any time, regardless of how old they've been in place, and that's one of the biggest things we've taken away, and particularly around the upheld complaint in relation to making sure that the location is identified on a map clearly, so there's no room for error, particularly how sensitive it is around a burial. So it was a complaint that wasn't investigated, however, again, we've taken away some lessons learned and attention to detail is critical when we review our complaints, and the customer did suffer poor experience in our complaint handling as a result of this attention to detail in an error by getting the name wrong. It was a very close surname that was different by one letter, which meant that the investigation had been concluded when it hadn't. That did mean that the timeframe for investigation had been extended. Details of all the ombudsman complaints that we receive and decisions can be viewed online. This is on the local government ombudsman's website, www.lgo.org.uk, and they have a decisions page that you can enter Rava District Council as the authority, and then you'll be able to clearly see the complaints that we receive that go to the ombudsman. The second part of the report starts from paragraph 3, which relates to non-ombudsman complaints. So we received 67 non-ombudsman complaints for the same period, 13 February to 20 May. 33 of these were non-complaints, so they were treated as service requests. 27 were stage 1 complaints, and 7 were stage 2 complaints. So of the 27 stage 1 complaints, 2 were resolved at initial stage, 3 have been upheld, 5 were not upheld, and then one of those was escalated straight to stage 2, and there are 16 at the time of writing the report pending investigation. Of the 7 stage 2 complaints, 1 of these were upheld, 3 were not upheld, and again 3 of those are pending investigation at the time of writing the report. And then the final part of the report just details a breakdown of our response times and max response times for the longest complaints response, and again some of the areas that the complaints cover. And from the report you'll see that planning is still one of the heaviest areas that we receive complaints for. So 42% of stage 1 complaints are for planning, and 50% of stage 2 complaints relate to planning. So I'm happy to answer questions in relation to the report. Thank you. Thank you Mark. I suppose with my planning chair head on as well, we should look at that to see if what we're doing to possibly answer the complaints or failing to reduce the complaints. Any questions for Ms. Travensford? All right, thank you, thank you Mark. Just checking, is this when Bob and Rose are leaving or not? It's really a question of whether you want us for Article 10, the separation of committees. Good point, good point. Thank you. Please stay for Agenda Item 10. We now move on to Part B, which is the audit section of the committee tonight. And Agenda Item 7 is the report of the external auditor Grant Thornton, and it's the external audit plan for 2023-24. And we have Darren Wells from Grant Thornton to introduce us to it. Good evening Darren. Good evening Councillors. So this is the audit plan for 2023-24. We've flagged it as an indicative audit plan and that's largely because we haven't completed all of our risk assessment planning work, but we have completed a sufficient amount to give an indication of what the audit plan would be, and that's what this report represents. As in previous years, it sets out for you the national context, it sets out the consideration of materiality, which drives our audit approach, and it highlights those risks that we describe as significant, which consume more of the audit time and effort than more standard audit tests. But what we do, in addition to those identified significant risks, we do a programme of work that ensures that we test and challenge any balanced transaction that is above materiality to provide assurance on the accuracy and reliability of the financial statements. The significant risks in themselves are fairly standard and nothing that you won't have seen from previous years. And importantly, we also highlight our independence and the proposed audit fee. That's probably all I was going to pick up. I'm happy to take any questions that members may have. Thank you, Darren. Any questions from members? I've got one, Darren, which is I suppose just to explain to, to ask you to explain how we've arrived at quite a large fee, a lot bigger than last year, I gather. Well, over to you. Thank you, Chad. It's probably not an unexpected question, but it isn't, it isn't a fee that we've dreamt up by ourselves. So for the 23/24 is the beginning of a new contract with the public sector, audit appointments limited, and they have revised the standard scale fee for all audited bodies across the country. And they recognise that audit fees had been driven too low and were a contributing factor to the state of local audit, where we now see so many accounts unaudited. Pleasingly, that's not the position for Rother. We are completely up to date, but one of the one of the factors that the SAA has responded to is recognising that audit fees needed to increase. And unfortunately, it is in one large jump compared to the previous year. So you are seeing a significant increase this year. Thank you, just before I go to Mr Farmer to ask a question. I did want to actually say though, because it is an enviable position to be one of those councils that have had its audits up to date, I think is a very small number in the country. And that is in due partly to our staff and previously Duncan and now Andrew. We've done a marvellous job, but of course it's a partnership with yourselves as well. So you've both worked, both your partners have worked extremely well to make us, I think, very enviable, especially just the surrounding districts are in nowhere near the same state that we are. So thank you for that. And thank you to Andrew and his staff. Mr Farmer, you've got a question. Good evening Duncan. I note from many of the prior year audit recommendations that have been rolled over from previous years and may end up being rolled over for another year. Are you as the independent auditor satisfied with management's diligence in solving these issues you raised and how does their response compare with other councils you deal with? So that aspect of the audit plan, I think we've recorded that we haven't yet assessed the progress of implementation of those recommendations. And that's one element of the risk assessment work that's outstanding. I think that's just a timing matter. Certainly having audited the council over the last three to four years, my experience is that external audit recommendations are taken seriously and considered and on the whole responded to appropriately and timely. We can't say that for every council, but I'm pleased to say that's the case for Watler. So the fact that the audit plan, the indicative audit plan, only has TBC currently doesn't cause me any great concern. Okay. I have a second question, chair, which I think is really to Andrew rather than Duncan, which is I noticed that we have to now have our IFRS 16 compliance, and I wondered how confident management was that they can implement this in a timely manner. We have an issue with turnover of senior staff. We currently have two temps leading on the audit and leading the finance department. So it's not as easy as it may have been if we'd had more continuity of staff, but I'm confident we will get there. But it's taken scenic route, if you like. Thank you. Any other questions for us? Councillor Biggs. Evening, Duncan. I've been reading your left-hand side, what you have to say, and then reading the right-hand side, the management response. This is something that keeps cropping up with it. It says about the council not holding sign legal services, they've addressed that. But then we come back to the housing company, which seems to keep cropping up. And it says lack of signed agreements indicate weak record keeping. The council has also ensured a loan agreement is in place that will set out the terms and conditions, blah, blah, blah. And then the management come back and say the working capital loan agreement with rather housing company are in the process of being finalised and this work is expected to be completed and signed by the end of the current financial year. Now, I've heard that since last May, and it keeps cropping up. So my question is, how long should we just keep putting this off unless Andrew can answer that for me? It's funny to say that, because I've got in my notes, I think there's some good news in relation to the very thing you just spoke about, Andrew. It's imminent because we had to get, effectively we had a rate advised by our treasury advisors that was too high. And we got a second opinion from another firm of treasury advisors. And we think we now have a satisfactory rate that is higher than base rate, it takes account of state aid, etc. But it means that the schemes the housing company working on should be viable. The original rate that I'm not sure when it was, it was probably back in November or something that they got it from the original treasury advisors, I was way too high and would have affected the viability of the housing company and its schemes. So we now have a revised rate that will meet legal requirements, state aid requirements, satisfies me that we get in a good return, but will actually make the schemes hopefully viable, a lot more viable than they would have been otherwise. But that is now very close to resolution. But that has been the delay in factor for some time, that the rate was just way too high based on the risk assessment that particular treasury advisors did. So we've got a different risk assessment from different treasury advisors that is a more acceptable rate and means that it is viable now. Slightly devil's advocate before you come back. Our next meeting is July the 24th, what's the chances? Good. Thank you for the answer, and you say it's imminent. I've had Ben Hook tell me that, I've had Joe Powell tell me that, I've had Duncan Ellis tell me that, and none of them are still waiting now. And you said the rate. Now I asked for this in full council last year when I come. It's taxpayers' money, they give a loan from the council, so what is the actual rate that you're looking at and what's the term payback? The rate is approximately 4% above base rates, it's about 9%. What's the term of payback? Not being agreed at. Sorry? It's not agreed at because we don't know the length of the project yet in terms of So is that imminent as well? Well they've just got the tenders back for the building works, so I don't know the details. But imminent could be the next? I don't know the period of build, so I don't know if that's been agreed. So imminent isn't really imminent, is it? It should be, it should be, it's getting closer. Well you don't sound very confident, put it that way. It's not been the smoothest of projects. I'm sure people come to work rather than get told. Oh, there's another little thing on the side that's going to be a pain in your face. Councillor Barnes? Yes, I notice that there is to be a member briefing on Blackfriars which has been postponed because of the election. It might be useful if that's in place before the 24th of July meeting. Yes, well Lorna Ford is online and I'll mention that to her anyway. Any other questions for Mr Wells, please? No? No? Right, thank you Darren. Thank you. Yes, again before noting, so I'll take that as noted. Agenda item 8, the internal audit annual report and opinion for 23/24. Gary Angel, Mr Angel. Thank you Chair and good evening. Each year I'm required to deliver an internal audit opinion on the overall adequacy and effectiveness of the Council's framework of governance, risk management and control. That opinion is expressed in this report and it's based on the audit work completed in the financial year 2023/24. The results of which also feed into the annual governance standards, which I think is an important committee in the next meeting. Other items covered in this report include a summary of the performance of the internal audit services last year, a statement of how well we performed, how well we can perform with public sector internal standards and an update on whistleblowing activity, which you also forced me. On top of all that, this concludes my usual quarterly update. I now outline the key points in the report. So first of all, summary of audit activity in quarter 4, paragraph 6. Before I get into this section, I'd like to clear up any confusion regarding the content of Appendix A. Some of you might not have experienced a sense of deja vu reading the original Appendix A, as it mostly contains the same suggested summary as you saw last quarter. So when I refer to Appendix A on this meeting, I'm talking about the revised Appendix A, which you shall receive a copy of. I can only apologize for that mistake. It's an oversight on my part. Back to the report. We issued five reports in the final quarter of 2023/24, not seven as stated in the report. I think that's the end of the areas now. However, the report is correct in saying that all provided good or substantial assurance. The executive summary of these audits can be found in the revised Appendix A, which is supplied separately to the main report pack. The reports in quarter 4 are council tax, business rates, creditors, treasury management and payroll. As previously mentioned, all received positive assurance ratings, meaning that no areas of significant concern were found. As for the overall performance in 2023/24, four details of the audits completed are shown in Appendix B, which is on page 77. The appendix also shows that 86.2% of the planned audit work was completed on this occasion. Now normally we'd expect to try and achieve about 90%, but the target was not met on this occasion, mainly due to overruns and too complex audits. This has also delayed other audit work, some of which were still in progress at the end of the financial year. Now onto the regular thing on the implementation of audit recommendations. The progress on the outstanding audit recommendations can be seen in Appendix C, which is on page

1. In the old year section, there are currently eight recommendations still outstanding, all but one of which relate to 2023/22/23. The long-standing recommendations were discussed at senior leadership team on two separate occasions in May 2020/24, and all three cases attributed to the IT manager have now been resolved. Only one 2018/19 recommendation now remains. This concerns the procurement hub SLA, the drafter which is currently being reviewed by rubber officers. The progress made on the 2022/23 recommendations has been mixed this quarter. Not all have moved forward, partly due to resourcing issues. Let me come to the latest year recommendations. Very good progress has been made on these, and I just can only hope it continues. It makes my life easier. Income protection work and other financial savings. These points are covered in paragraphs 15 to 18 on page
2. These two sections show that the internal teams income protection activities and other work has contributed to almost £79,000 worth of financial savings in 2022/23. Please Andrew. Quality assurance and improvement programme. Paragraph 19 onwards details the various methods used to measure the proficiency, effectiveness and quality of internal audit. My own self assessment against our professional standards reported to this committee last quarter, and the results of our latest peer review which was reported to this committee in June 2023. Now both of them demonstrate a high level of compliance with these standards. We also capture client feedback throughout the year, as each audit is completed, both from the operational staff and at service manager level. The results of the client feedback service in 22/23/24 are summarised in the table in paragraph 24. These indicate a high level of satisfaction with the quality of the internal audit services, which is always nice to hear. Performance measures. Paragraph 26 shows internal performance against targets in 23/24. This shows that three of our five targets were met or exceeded. The targets for governance audits and overall completion of the audit plan were not met on this occasion because of the aforementioned audit overruns. Confluence with the public sector internal audit standards. I can once again confirm that Robert's internal audit team and our approach generally conform with the requirements of these professional standards. Then it takes to the over assessment of the accounts internal audit controls. Paragraph 30 and 31 on page 59. Three areas of concern were highlighted in 2023/24, but many of the issues raised have since been resolved and some areas of concern still remain though. Now the important bit. The opinion on the control environment, paragraph 32 onwards, page 60. This sets out the basis providing assurance and how well things are operating in those areas audited during the year. If we look once more at appendix B, which is on page 77, we can see that whilst three audits received limited or minimum assurance rating in 2023/24, most of the issues identified have since been resolved and the vast majority of the control objectives reviewed during the year were met, at least in part. This leads me to my conclusion shown in paragraph 36. The key point to note here is that taking all of the above points into consideration, I'm still of the opinion that the Council's framework of governance, which management and control is adequate and effective. I'm concerned, however, how the impact staff resourcing issues is having on across the Council and as this could affect the opinion next year if the situation doesn't improve, but various answer in the file to try and resolve that on the moment, so I understand. Finally then, Whistleblowing Activity 23/24. It's the final section report and Appendix D, which is on page 79, updates members on all whistleblowing cases received in 2023/24. A total of 29 cases were received in the year, over half of which included allegations in respect of benefit or Council tax fraud or housing issues/tenancy fraud. Not all of them could be claimed for because there wasn't enough evidence to do anything with them, but I always refer across those I can. I think that's it then. Any questions on the report? Thank you, Gabe. Just before I pass, it's one thing that dawned on me the other day is that I've always taken whistleblowing to mean people inside an organisation reporting concerns inside that organisation. That doesn't strictly apply to this Whistleblowing. This is people phoning from outside complaining about something. It can be carried as a Whistleblowing. Is that right? Yes. Well, it's mostly emails or filling in online forms, but yeah, I can't remember the last time I was a member of staff. There can be complaints about staff, but like mostly you can see from the categories in the Appendix that very few are even member candidates. Yeah, it's not urgent, but sometimes I'd like this approach to look at what becomes a Whistleblowing and what's a complaint that Mark Atherton's team would deal with. There needs to be a clear line between those two. As I say, Whistleblowing to me is internal. Mr Farmer. Yes, I got sort of the same question, Chair, because Gary says he doesn't get feedback necessarily to find out what's the outcome. So who does get knowledge of the outcome? Who in the council knows whether these issues are resolved? That depends on who it is, but I mean, usually obviously the service area I've referred to would know, but I also should add sometimes external ones, other councils sometimes come to me. I occasionally get one through the National, the National Fraud Initiative. So, you know, they don't feedback what the result is. I just hope they, if it's worth investigating, they do so. I think we need to look at that, which goes where and not for tonight, but at some stage we need to look at that because that's, yeah, it could be a whole host of, what was it, 29 Whistleblowing cases that we know nothing about. Castle Barnes. Yes, a comment on that before I, before I go on. I think Whistleblowing should be internal. I think we need a different term for something that the public are actually voicing. I think it would be useful if there were a feedback to the internal audit team. It would make sure that things are happening. And that really leads me to a couple of major concerns. The first is expressed very well by Gary. We seem to have more problems now with staff turnover and staff vacancies. That really needs analyzing as to cause. I have my own views as to why this is happening, and if I'm right, it won't be altogether easy to remedy. But what my question really, and it's probably to Lorna rather than to Gary, is where are those sort of issues being addressed and where is turnover reported because that's quite an important measure, which I think we ought to know about at this committee and possibly at other committees. The other major area which remains of significant concern is the Blackfriars spine road, which of course is holding up the entire Blackfriars project. So it was not only that it was wildly out of control. That has now been reined in. Management activity has been taken. But we still seem to be way behind on delivery. And that is putting the whole project into great difficulties. I don't expect an answer on Blackfriars tonight, but I think again I'd like to know a little more from Lorna where that is being reported and monitored other than the senior management team. How do members, the members who need to know, find out about it? And that probably is this committee. But I wait really for more more to comment. Thank you, Councillor Barnes. As if I imagine when you started, Speaker Lorna turned the camera on in anticipation. Lorna. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councillor Barnes, for those questions. So in terms of staffing, it is something that is of concern in terms of our turnover and making sure we get the right people in the right roles. Members will be aware as part of our Fit for the Future programme, we've had a worksheet around our people strategy. It's the HR committee that oversees data around things like turnover. And they've also recently agreed the principles of our people strategy. We've had an internal working group and Tim Normanton has been leading that piece of work. We're now reaching a conclusion of the people strategy, which I'm really pleased, an excellent document that will be, that has been approved by senior leadership team and will be communicated to the HR committee. The next stages are to look at our workforce plan. So some of the issues that have been raised there by Councillor Barnes will definitely be addressed through that workforce planning, which will be done at a service level. There are some more general issues that we have as a council. And in fact, local government as a sector has been finding. So recruitment key roles in professional services like planning, like finance, like legal, incredibly challenging across the sector. And our people strategy is looking at how we can actually reduce our resilience on consultants and agency staff and try and take approach. It's been very successful in planning of growing our own. So that is certainly part of our people strategy. I think it'd be really beneficial to have a member briefing on where we've got to with all of this work stream, because it is critical. If we don't do this piece of work, we won't be able to do all the other aspirational things that the council plans to do through its council plan and through the other work streams such as our financial resilience to we need key people in roles to deliver our savings and make sure we're being effective and efficient as well. So that was quite a long winded answer to your question, Councillor Barnes, but that turnover figure is something that we keep a very close eye on. And it is member involvement through the HR committee where that takes place. In terms of Blackfriars, and I think you're right that this evening isn't the right time to go through a position statement on Blackfriars, but that is what we are planning to bring. We've got some key decisions to be taken around Blackfriars and that will be coming through in the next round of committees in July. So we will have an update. And of course, we are reaching a critical time, as Andrew alluded to. So there will be progress Councillor Biggs. So hopefully that answers the questions, but I'm happy to come back on any of that. Nods from Councillor Barnes, but Councillor Delaney is in with a question. Yeah, I just wanted to say something about exit interviews, I think were mentioned in one of the sections in the report tonight, and they're very valuable as far as identifying why people are leaving. I think it mentioned something about how there were some gaps where managers weren't always doing those exit interviews, but I'm sure that will be, you know, I'm sure that can be addressed. But the themes from those interviews, I'm sure will be very valuable for the HR committee to review. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions for Chief Exec? Because it's on Gary's one still, it's not her own one yet. But Gary, are you going on to the appendices separately? We can do them now. I'm going through the audit reports for the last quarter, yes? Yes, a gender item eight, the new version. It's very difficult to grasp the scale of the partial assurance obviously on liability might be of considerable importance or might be of limited importance depending really on how often the revaluations are taking place. And the same thing is true of businesses. So I would find it quite helpful, if not nice at some stage, if this committee could understand the sort of scale of sums involved. I'm assuming it will be relatively small, and therefore the partial assurance matters less than it might otherwise do. Otherwise I think I might be expressing more concern tonight than I proposed to do. I think you're right that most of them will be fairly small beer. But it's difficult to quantify because we just identified that they weren't being done in a timely manner. And then we were assured then that they were brought up to date. So it'd be difficult to quantify what the amounts are, I'm afraid. Yes, I think probably the manager concerned might be able to indicate something of the scale each year. I presume most of them are to our benefit, but there will be some that are not to our benefit. But my guess is that they're relatively rare. But it will be good to know because anything that maximizes our revenue at this stage is something we ought to be doing. Thank you, Councillor Barnes. Anybody else? Any questions? Any other dependencies? Yes, Councillor. Just a quick one. Right of approvals, it says, however, revenue and benefits managers confirm it approves all write-offs on a monthly basis. What sort of figures are we talking about? Any ideas? Sorry, I haven't got that information to hand. I mean, on the business rates ones would be a lot more than council tax. But, you know, it could be several thousand pounds. But I'm really guessing. I don't know. I'd have to find that out for you. Just to clarify, Councillor Bigg, is it the business rates? The reason I ask you this is because I was sitting in the courtroom today with Hastings and they came in with a 700 people haven't paid council tax and 174 people haven't paid business rates. I'm just wondering, when I look at this, you know, we have got a deficit of 3.8 million and we are writing stuff off. So I'm just a bit concerned how much it is, you know, what the sort of figures were. That was all. Ms. Stranger. We shouldn't be writing stuff off if the amount is still collectible. The obviously debt relief orders and individual voluntary arrangements, we have no choice but to write it off in those cases because they've gone for the legal process to wipe the state clean. So I don't know how long it will be. Some will be quite big sums where people haven't paid it for years, whatever reason. You know, they've been stringing us along, playing a little bit here and there and then signing. They don't play it. Others, when they go bankrupt, we don't lose it all. I'm thinking, Andrew, we get those figures anyway in a different format. They eventually come through to us in the budget. Budget monitoring. Thank you. Any other questions? I'm sure this is for note. Oh, no, it's to approve as well, isn't it? The opinion, I think. So it's to note the activity and also that we approve the audit manager's opinion, which was set out in paragraph 36. Can I have somebody to move up? Councillor Gray, thank you. Councillor Biggs seconded. All those in favour, please. Thank you. Agenda item nine, a review of the risk register. Anna Everett, please. Thank you, Chair. Good evening, members. Can everyone hear me OK? Good. I'm here to present the latest iteration of the risk register. I'm the risk coordinator, but the risks are all owned and managed by the senior leadership team. In my report, I've highlighted about five risks that have changed and I'll just go through them with you now. Risk number one, political political changes may impact delivery of council services. I wanted to point out that this score does exceed the risk appetite, but it does reflect the uncertainty of how funding will be distributed with changes to government policy and the spending review. This one stays high and we've mitigated it as much as possible, but it is pretty much an unknown. Risk number two, which is social. The council cannot meet its housing objectives. Again, the score exceeds the risk appetite due to the increased levels of homelessness and the escalating costs. We did consider committee last time made a suggestion that we split it into three parts. Senior leadership team considered that, but from a corporate level, considered that it should just be one risk. Moving on, risk number four, economic and financial failure to operate within a sustainable budget. This score remains very high, as you can see. We have got a lot of mitigations in place, but not all of the mitigations have come to fruition as yet. So I think it's important that the score remains high. Risk number 13, which is partnership and contractual failure of a neighbouring authority. We didn't know very much about this one when we put it on the register a couple of months ago, but we've sought the help of our monitoring officer. And actually, there isn't a lot of impact with the failure of a neighbouring authority. Based on guidance from the monitoring officer, we've actually reduced it significantly enough so it's going to be de-escalated from the risk register. The last one I was going to point out is risk number 16, which is legal and compliance, ineffective governance arrangements of Blackfriars housing company. Again, and I think you can see from the work that Gary has done on the audit report, lots of audit recommendations, if not all of them have been implemented. And the monitoring officer is content with the current governance arrangements. And so this risk will also be removed from the register. Just one more thing that I was going to mention that Councillor Barnes brought up the other day, which is potentially, I'll just scroll down, one of the risks, which is, bear with me. Nearly there. It's quite a big document. Which is number 11, coastal river flooding and extreme weather events. Senior leadership team are going to look at this one in light of Councillor Barnes's comments that the risk descriptor isn't particularly accurate. And probably this risk should be more about the impact of the climate strategy rather than specifically coastal and river flooding. So we're going to look at that in a bit more detail. And I'm very happy to take questions if you have any. Thank you, Anna. Any questions for... Councillor Barnes, there's a question or comment. The reason I was hesitating, Chairman, was my mind will be mainly comments rather than questions. There may well be some implicit questions in there. I don't know how you want to handle this because we're going to cover possibly a number of topics. Let me start the ball rolling with the last and explain what I was thinking about flooding, which is currently under one risk. Let me just check. I think it comes under risk 11 at the moment. In a sense, I think it belongs under paragraph 12. And I think we do need to look at the distribution of that in between, because there are some things that are within our direct control. And there are other things on which we will have a limited influence, though hopefully our climate strategy will influence some of our partners as well. But obviously, we're going to find it much more difficult to mitigate the risks in risk 12, whereas risk 11, we should be looking at substantial mitigation. Since we're in the middle of an election campaign, I won't quarrel with anything on paragraph one, except to note the LGA have produced a very good white paper, which actually, if the incoming government takes seriously, we might begin to get some progress on local government finance at long last. But when I look at risk two, it does seem to me that although I can see the logic of splitting them lower down than the corporate, there are two types of objectives. Again, one within our control. Obviously, we can do quite a lot to influence things that lead to homelessness. We can do quite a lot on the affordable front. But the one thing we can't do is much about the overall target. And the overall target, we have never met. Literally never. And so to group that in with the objectives we can do something about still seems to me very misleading in terms of our outward face. And this is a public document in a way which the departmental ones aren't. So actually, I think there was a crash. I think in some ways, we do need to acknowledge that in terms of the overall target, that is always going to be red. And that's partly because of the nature of our land mass and the enormous amount that is actually... The only thing we can do about it, and I hope we shall argue very hard next year, is actually get the objective reduced by the inspector. Then we might have a chance. I still think the inspector is likely to set it higher than our building rate will ever meet. The last one I wanted to comment on was risk four. The worry I have about showing it as 20 is this is almost certain to happen. Now, I agree with the comment that our mitigating measures have yet to take effect. It does seem to me a slightly odd signal to be giving the electorate in general and our council taxpayers that we're almost certain to face financial failure. I don't think that is true. I think we've got a grip on homelessness, which is what's bankrupting other councils close to us. And therefore, in some sense, I think I will welcome a rider to say that we're putting in 20 because our mitigating measures have yet to deliver, but the right mitigating measures are in place and if delivered, will actually reduce that from 20. Those are my comments, German. Yeah, thank you. And I did mention, especially on that last one, she did say it's been left high with that caveat, but it's the. It's the trouble of a four by five, five by five system that doesn't let you fine tune it to a sort of you can't get a 17, you got a 16 or 20. That's it. Yeah, I take on board all of those comments. And with this particular one about the budget situation, there was a lot of debate with senior leadership team at what level it should be at. I think there is a quiet confidence that that everything is in place that needs to be in place. And I would hope to see that reduce next time. I suppose a good thing, ignoring the figure is red does stop people forgetting about it. And it does highlight it without the 20 figure in it. You telling your camera on Lorna, is that a signal that you're about you wish to speak? I think that is exactly it. By keeping it as red, we are not there yet. We have not achieved those savings yet. Andrew, I'm sure can explain more about the work that he has been doing, but we have been making sure that we understand a position statement on savings that have been identified. They are kind of in the amber green category rather than the red, but we haven't achieved it all yet. And I think it's really, really important to keep our mind focused on delivering those savings, identifying for further savings, too. So I think it was a very deliberate action to keep our minds focused on what is one of the biggest risks to the council. Thank you. Thank you, Lorna. Councillor Biggs. Just to put my Councillor Barnes address, a lot of stuff. I'm surprised, 16, you've moved the risk from the register when both external and internal auditors have highlighted issues. We still got to get the agreement signed and other bits and pieces signed. So whilst a lot of stuff has gone on in the background of this, I would have thought you would have kept it on the register until it's all been sorted. I think it is a bit of a judgment call. I mean, one of the things I like about this process is it is subjective. And we talked about this one quite a lot, but the feeling of confidence that the governance arrangements are right, with the exception of a few of the documents that need to be sorted. I think we've come quite a long way with the governance of Blackfriars. And I think this really does reflect the level of confidence that we've got it right at the moment, even if there are a few things that need to be, you know, i's dotted and t's crossed, it's the other way round. And Councillor Biggs will be looking for those t's and i's, I can assure you. Yeah, it's just, you know, once it's all done, then I'll remove it. Once you remove it, it could come back to bite you in the backside, basically. Yes, Anne? It can go back on at any point. I keep a separate register with anything that's just fallen below the line. And we review those ones as we review these main ones as well. So it never really goes. It's kind of de-escalated. So if anything was to crop up, that meant that people weren't confident about the arrangements, it would just go back up again. Thank you. Any other questions for Anne? Thank you. This is, I think, another one to note, was it not noted? Yes. Thank you. So agenda item 10, it's the proposed change to the decision making structure, the separation of the Audit and Standards Committee. And this is the Chief Exec, Lorna, presenting this report. Thank you, Chair. Members will recall a couple of meetings ago, we discussed the principle of separating the Audit and Standards Committee, and there was generally support for that. We have seen over the last year, really, a really heavy agenda that has meant, you know, that meetings go on quite late and really key bits of information have been discussed towards the end of the meeting, and perhaps doesn't get the attention that it deserves sometimes. So this is a really, really practical way, I think, of dealing with a heavy audit agenda. So the proposal is to create two standalone committees. I understand that pre 2017, this is the way it used to work. In terms of what that means for the individual committees, the Audit and Standards Committee will continue as it is, the Audit Committee, rather, will continue very much as it is at the moment with eight members and they will be appointed in accordance with political balance. And it will continue to meet five times a year. And you can see the terms of reference attached at Appendix A. In terms of the Standards Committee, this is slightly different in that we're not seeking political balance here, but rather a member from each political group will be required to serve on this committee. You can see the terms of reference at Appendix B. So we will need to make sure we're getting the additional two meetings. The idea is that the Standards Committee will meet twice a year. So we'll need to find time in the calendar to get those meetings in. And it will also mean that the independent remuneration panel will also need to consider what special responsibility allowance will be paid to the chairs of both committees. And that happens at its review meeting in November. So this report is to agree those recommendations, but we will need full council approval for me to authorise and make the necessary amendments to the council's constitution to reflect the separation of the two committees. And I think that's about it. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councillor Barnes. I'm very supportive of this move. It seems to me that it actually has one advantage, which we ought to consider tonight and recommend as well as the other recommendations. I think it ought to be much easier for discussion of standards to be taken in private, which will allow more disclosure to members of some of the very real problems that are occurring in some of the bodies where there are a huge number of complaints. And in a way, because we meet in public, because on the whole, this is a small part of our agenda, we tend to nod through where some of these problems are systematic and probably we need to see if there's something that can be done about them. But you can't discuss that in the current standards part of the agenda. So I do actually think we ought to make provision in the constitution for standards to be able to meet in private whenever necessary. Thank you. Before I come to you on that, Lorna, I would agree wholeheartedly with that. Because you need to get into the details of stuff. It may be that then from each of the two committee meetings, there needs to be a short report to Council giving the figures like we get now here. But they've got to be free to talk in detail. And of course, the independent persons, Bob Brown and Rose don't know all about it anyway, but they're also sitting there biting their tongues because they can't talk about it. In this close meeting. So hopefully, if you could look at that, that would be grateful, Lorna, to put you in the spot there. No, that's fine, Chair. There is one thing we need to consider and that the complaint system is a confidential process. So it's only if someone is found to be in breach of the code, I will have to speak to the monitoring officer about how much we can actually make even discuss in a private session. And I think Linda Walker is still online, actually. She may have a view or this may be something we want to take off offline and bring back into the committee. But I see that Linda just got a camera. I don't think she had a lot of choice. You fed her that one. But you're muted, Linda. Yes, I've done one bit, but not the other bit. Sorry. Yes, I think we do need to sort of discuss it. If you remember, I think when I was down in December, we did actually have a particular standards matter where we did go into private session. And although, again, we weren't talking about names and that sort of thing, but we have to talk about the details of the complaints so that I could get you to endorse a decision that I've made in respect of two aspects of it. So I think probably the norm would be to deal with things confidentially because, you know, we do keep those confidences. But there may, it's going to be a lot easier, for instance, as where we do have to discuss in some more detail that we're able to do that. And obviously, a more informal group, it would be easier to do that. And the other thing I was just going to add is that Lorna, you need to work on the changes to the constitution, because obviously as monitoring officer, I have responsibilities as well. But we can do that fairly easily. But I think going back to the original thing, I think we can come to a reasonable balance of maintaining confidentiality. But I think being able to discuss in a little bit more detail and have a little bit more time about, you know, things like the trends and specific issues that are coming up with regard to the complaints, which there's no time to do at the moment. So I hope that answers that okay. Thank you. Thank you, Linda. Thank you, Lorna. Any questions for either Lorna or Linda? Right. Before I go to a vote on all six recommendations, does anyone want to bring up a point on any one of the recommendations? Right. Okay, so we're recommending to Council that the current Audit Standards Committee be separated and replaced by two standalone committees, namely Audit Committee and Standards Committee with effect from the 1st of September. The Audit Committee comprise eight members appointed in accordance with political balance requirements and be scheduled to meet five times per year within the terms of reference as set out in Appendix A. The Standards Committee comprise of an elected member from each political group serving on the Council, and therefore not in accordance with political balance requirements, and be scheduled to meet twice per year within the terms of reference set out in Appendix B.
3. The current timetable of meetings be reviewed and new dates established with service officers and members to accommodate a new meeting schedule. I'll come back to that in our next item as well.
4. The independent remuneration panel be requested to consider and make recommendations on special responsibility allowances to be paid to the chairs of the two separate committees at their review meeting in November 2024. As subject to full Council approval, the Chief Exec be authorised to make all necessary amendments to the Council's constitution to reflect the separation of the Audit Standards Committee and the creation of two separate standalone committees as detailed in the report. I'll have somebody to move that, please. Councillor Barnes, thank you. Seconded. Councillor Gray, thank you. All those in favour, please. Thank you. That is carried. Moving on to Agenda Item 11, and this is what I will come back to, which is the work programme. For some strange reason, you will notice that the next meeting is on a Wednesday. And ever since I took over this, I thought, why, why, why? Apparently, historically, it goes back to a time when budgets had a finishing date of June, and this was the possible latest date we could meet to approve them, and now they're May anyway. So part of the review of the dates will be getting rid of the Wednesday Audit Committee and make them all Mondays to fit in with, obviously, the finance and the auditing schedules. So the work programme, top one's done tonight. Wednesday, the 20th, there won't be any standards. Just mentioned now, Councillor Barnes has agreed to chair that meeting for me and I should be away. Anyone got any comments about the work programme? No. We then get eventually then on the next one, we get some more reports, I think, from the internal audit. I did want to mention earlier when Mr. Ranger was talking about having only done 86%, was it? Don't beat yourself up, Gary. I think the internal audit do a wonderful job of keeping us informed of what's going on. And you don't seem to annoy too many managers, so you must be doing something right. So, work programme noted, ladies and gentlemen. It's funny, on the night when we decided to split the committees because the agendas get too long, we're finishing a quarter to eight, but there we go. Thank you, everyone. Good night. Thank you.