Transcript

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the governance and audit committee today. The first item on the agenda is the appointment of chair. Do we have any nominations from the lay members for the position of chair, please? >> I'm happy to nominate our co-chair. Thank you. Is there a seconder, please? Lovely. Thank you very much. Are there any other nominations? Are you willing to accept the nomination? If so, we'll go to the decision. Yes, I'm willing. >> Lovely. Thank you. There is a poll in the chat if you could just say whether you're in favour of that decision. I'll get my coat selected. >> Okay. There's a majority. That's lovely. Hand over to the chair, please. >> Thank you, Wendy. Okay. Let's move on to the second item. The second item is appointment of a vice chair. I understand that Tony Eason is happy to stand and, therefore, I nominate him. Do we have a seconder, please? Thank you. Any other nominations? No. Can we do by show of hands confirm Tony's appointment, please? Yeah. That's unanimous. Thank you, Tony. Much appreciated. Okay. We'll get on to the committee meeting agenda proper, starting with item 3. Item 3 is apologies for absence. I've been notified of two absences. That is Malcolm, Layna and Webb. I think other than those two people, everyone is here. So thank you. Item 4, declarations of interest. Any declarations of interest and notes, please? Nope. Good. Which case we'll move on. Item 5 is the public open forum. This is the opportunity for members of public to send in written representations or to address the committee in person. Wendy, any members of public who wish to address us, please? >> No, chair. We haven't been notified. >> Great. Okay. Which case? Move on to item 6. Item 6 is the action list. Very pleased we have a short action list consisting of three items. We'll just take each one in turn. The first one is respect of a paper in relation to finance team capacity. I'm grateful to John Davis, head of finance, who produced the paper some time ago, which I've had the opportunity to discuss with him and shared with members. Are there any questions or comments noting that there's some sensitivity in the paper that we can't sort of talk about in an open meeting? But are there any questions or comments for John at this stage, please? >> I've got a question about the capacity of the team. Do you want to raise it now or when we come to that report? My question is simply we know that audit whales are going to bring the date forward for the preparation of the accounts and the audit. Are you happy with the new structure and its ability to accommodate that? >> Thanks, Chair. I think if we go back maybe prior to the pandemic and the first time that those deadlines were brought forward by Welsh government regulations, we were making good progress towards meeting those, which would have been an end of May draft accounts and end of July excellent audit process being completed. We've had quite a bit of churn since that point, but I'm happy that the structures that have been put in place will get us back to where we were. There's still a lot of work to undertake to get to an end of May because by the very nature of the work we do around year end, there's many other conflicting priorities at that time. But the capacity that we're putting in we feel is at the right level and will give us the best opportunity to meet those deadlines in full. >> Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Martin. >> Thank you, Chair. John, kind of allied to that, there's obviously the ongoing discussions about internal audit structures and processes. Where's that process at the moment? Just I'm aware it's obviously not on the action log, so how do we make sure we keep sight of it? >> Yes, no problem at all. So we're making advances and progress in that space. I know that Jan separately obviously and in terms of some of the changes that we're obviously advised of in consolidating our in-house provision. That's being worked through by Jan at the moment. Jan, come in in a second just to talk to that. I need to work through, as is the case for another senior role, a process of recruitment now. Obviously, as was highlighted at the last meeting, I need to make sure that we expedite that and not overly complicate that matter. So, yeah, rest assured, I think as I made the commitment to look to conclude that before the end of the summer. So that's what I'm looking to undertake and complete. >> Can I just push a little hard on what conclude by the end of the summer means? Are you saying we will recruit into that post? So advertising for that position will happen when? >> So we're sat here at the beginning of June, and I would like to think by the end of July that we will have concluded a suitably robust recruitment process. This is not unnecessarily unwieldy, given the fact that we've had Jan in post as acting chief internal auditor and successfully for a period of time. >> So thank you. Thank you, Peter. I think that's helpful. As I said, we're all keen that this matter is concluded as quickly as possible. So thank you for that update. Back to the action list. The second action with respect to people's strategy, as you are aware, that is on the agenda at item 15. So if we are content, I will look to close that item. And the third item is not due until later this year. So yet again, we'll come back to that in due course. If we could then move on to the next set of items. We have four papers from Ordered Wales. And may I formally welcome Julie Owens and Carmen Rees from Ordered Wales, who are going to be talking through these papers today. Perhaps if we start at item 7 by talking around -- talking to the annual audit plan for this year. Julie, over to you, please. >> Thank you, Chair. And hello, everyone. Nice to see you all. So I'm the financial audit lead on the monetary audit. And today, as the chair has mentioned, I'm joined by Carmen Rees, who's a performance audit manager with Ordered Wales. We'll be taking you through the agenda item for our capital program management review a little later. So the first item on the agenda is the audit plan. So this sets out our planned audit program for both of our financial accounts and our performance audit work. So I'll just take you through the main points and, of course, take any questions you may have at the end. So the first few pages of the plan outline our key responsibilities. These are unchanged from last year. So I won't go through those in further detail. So I'll take you first to materiality. So as you know, we apply the concept of materiality in our accounts audit work. So we've set an initial materiality level of the financial statements this year of 3.6 million. So that's currently based on last year's accounts. But, of course, we will update that on receipt of the draft accounts later on. We do also set lower materiality levels for any areas of specific interest. So anything, for example, that might be deemed more sensitive in nature, such as senior office remuneration or related parties. And these levels are set out in the plan on page 10. So in terms of risks, as you know, we have a risk-based approach to direct the focus of our audit work. So there's one significant risk. That's the risk of management override of controls. So that's standard risk, which applies to all bodies. And we undertake a program of work each year to respond to that risk. We've also identified some other areas of audit focus to bring to your attention. So these include the pension liability, the valuation of land and buildings, both of which involve a degree of estimation and are sensitive to market conditions, inflation, interest rates, for example. And also to highlight, in the case of land and buildings valuations, that last year we did recommend improvements to the way that capital expenditure is treated in the valuation process. So we'll be following that up as part of this year's testing. We also have senior officer remuneration and related parties, which, as I've just mentioned, are material by nature, and so sensitive to small changes in value. So we're also aware of a change to the senior management team this year. And you'll recall, I'm sure, for related parties that we did report last year that revised procedures that have been introduced for completing annual decorations for year-end were not fully implemented or had been implemented but not fully embedded. So again, follow that up this year. So there are our main risks. Obviously, our risk assessment process is largely complete, but it's an ongoing risk assessment process, so should any additional risks that we feel we need to draw your attention crop up, we'll obviously advise officers and yourselves of those later. So moving then on to the timetable for the audit of accounts. On page 15. So our aim is to certify the accounts this year by the 30th of November. So this does depend on us receiving a good quality set of draft accounts by the agreed deadline of the 30th of June, along with fully supported and sufficient working papers, and of course there being no significant audit matters from prior years to outstanding or the current year as well. So 30th of November, I think this is an ambitious target and these deadlines are challenging for both ourselves and of course the finance team, which John has mentioned earlier on. But we will be putting every effort into getting plans in place over the coming weeks that put us in the best position possible to achieve these. So we'll be in regular contact with the finance team throughout the process, as we always are, to try and smooth that out, and of course we'll keep you updated of progress against that audit timetable as well. So obviously that would be a significant improvement on last year. I also wanted to mention that the Auditor-General for Wales and some of our directors met with the Society of Welsh Treasurers recently to discuss closure issues and also set out our commitment to bring in the audit certification timetable back on track, if you like, following the disruptions that we're all familiar with from past years. So the plan going forward is to try and bring the timetable back over a phased basis over the next three years to 30th of September by 25/26, which I think we understand is in line with Welsh Government expectations as well. And our Executive Director of Audit Services also recently wrote to the Section 151 officers, reinforcing all of those messages, but also recognising this is and remains a challenging target for all of us. So that's it in terms of the audit work. So moving on then to the planned performance audit work. So I should mention that unfortunately my colleagues Colin Davis and Charlotte, who are on the Monmouthshire performance audit team, couldn't attend today, so any questions I may have to refer back to them, but we'll do our best. So the planned work, which is set out in the plan, includes our Assurance of Risk Assessment project, as well as a thematic review, which is a review across all councils of staffing resources and pressures in local government, and also a local project yet to be confirmed. But we will of course update you as soon as we can on that. I know that Charlotte's been in discussion with your officers and they are fully cited at the programme, but we'll obviously update, as I said, update as soon as we can on that one. So moving then to the audit fee. So our estimated fee is set out on page 18. It does reflect an increase of 6.4 per cent this year compared to last year. This is due to an increase in our fee rates, which is largely due to inflation and our ongoing commitment to maintaining quality standards. There is a link in our plan to our fee scheme which sets it out in a bit more detail. I should emphasise, though, this is an estimate based on the current risks and expected audit work profile. Should this change at any time, obviously if a new risk emerge or the work programme changes, then we will of course update officers of any changes to the audit fee. And then finally the audit team. Just one change to the audit team this year. Gareth Lucey joins us as the engagement director. You've met him already and I understand he attended the last audit committee meeting. So that's I think all I wanted to say, but happy to take any questions or comments. Okay. Thank you, Julie. Questions or comments, please? Martin. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the paper. I've got a few queries I'll go through in order. On page 11 of the paper, which is in the supplementary paper, it talks about significant risks. It says the audit team is yet to conclude all areas of risk assessment. I presume this is just a catch-all, which means you've fully written into all 22 audit plans. Or does it mean you have more work to do in the planning stage, which would give me pause because all the work can be done by November. John and Peter have got to give you the draft accounts within a matter of weeks now. We're getting awful tight for you to start flagging up any new things. So where's your confidence level of anything coming out of the woodwork? No, I appreciate it. It is a caveat in there. Our risk assessment is substantially complete, but we just wanted to flag that it is an ongoing, continual risk assessment. The process doesn't just end, but at this point we are confident we've completed the majority of our risk assessment in order to produce the plan and start the work. I always hesitate when people caveat things. Everything is going along fine until you said the majority of, which means you haven't finished. When will you have finished? And we will know where we've completed. Obviously we've issued our audit plan, so it is substantially complete, fully signed off, but this is to reflect that it's an ongoing risk assessment. So I'm sure members of the committee that we have confidence that our planning work is sufficiently advanced to be able to issue the plan. Okay. All right. I speak for experience where I've been burned in other places where confidence and majority and significantly didn't mean anything because everything fell apart the day things were going to be signed off. But okay, let me move on then. As you said, we've set an ambitious target for November for finalising the accounts this year, which moves things forward significantly from February of this year for last year's accounts. Assuming, and I'll ask Peter and John about this, but assuming they are able to give you all papers of a sufficient quality by the 30th of June, you think this is an achievable target? Obviously you said ambitious, but the staff that are listed in the team, they were all earmarked inappropriately, and if nothing untoward comes out of the woodwork, then we think we'll get there by the end of November. Yeah. I mean, it is a challenging target, but we are committed to getting things back on track. Obviously we have been quite honest in the past, honest with you in the past about our resourcing pressures and recruitment difficulties which have eased, but are, you know, they are still there somewhat. But as things stand at the moment, we are confident that we will do our best, I suppose, to keep things on track as things stand at the moment. I'm not sure that gives me enough to go to the bookies and put Beth on this. As you said, should nothing untoward come to mind. Okay. My final one. A lot of pressures fall on us. Yeah, of course. I mean, stuff happens in the world, but in terms of, yeah, okay, I understand. My final one for the moment is, of course, on the fee, the fee and audit team page, page 18, says fees have increased by an average of 6.4%. I don't know what the specific is for us, but it goes on to say as I know I will inflationary pressures, which I don't think are 6.4 this year, and I'm going to need to invest in order quality. There's no mention in there, but efficiency. So it's the only public sector body in the world, I think, which doesn't mention efficiency every time it publishes a document. What sort of savings targets have you set yourselves to reduce those fees? And I know there's no profit-making element, but nevertheless, we would try to push hard down on obviously this figure, just like every other figure, the public expenditure we make. Yeah, I mean, we also appreciate the cost pressures that everyone is under. As you said, we can only recover the costs of our audit. We can't make a surplus. So we're very much aware of the ongoing need to make efficiencies. And ourselves, we've been subject to cost-cutting measures recently, internally, to try and reduce our own costs. We're very much aware of that. All I can sort of show is that should the audit fee not be used, not be needed, then it would be refunded to you, as in line with the legislation. Yeah, I'm not sure how often that happens in practice, in fee. I understand it in fee. Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you. I'm not seeing any other hands. Let me just check quickly. I think I have one question. I have questions actually for John Davis Head of Finance. I have a recollection that we had an issue last year whereby there was some delay in terms of our ability to respond quickly to audit whales' queries. Can I just check in with John? Where are we with the process this year, and are we more confident that audit whales' queries will be dealt with in a prompt manner, please? Thanks, Gia. And you know, I think Martin kind of hit the nail on the head, really, around, you know, quality of working papers, because that is the key thing that avoids a lot of that back and forth with auditors. If the quality of the information and the data is there at the outset in theory, we don't have to have much contact at all. What we have and will have embedded this time around is a system that audit whales have given us access to, which negates the need for a lot of back and forth via email. And the reason that's important is that, you know, if people are on leave, if different auditors, different officers within the council have to pick things up whilst others are out of the office, then the progress can be picked up on quite easily from that system that's going to be used. So we're hopeful that perhaps some of those issues we saw last year where things have put on the shelf for a couple of weeks while someone's on leave or out of work will be overcome this time around. So we go into it with a little bit more confidence that those delays are going to be rectified this time around, yeah. Okay, great. Thank you, John. In which case, I suggest we move on to the next agenda item. That being Item 8, the audit whales capital program management review. I'll hand over to Carmen Rees in a few seconds time for him to talk us through the key points of the report. Then I'll pause for questions from members and then hand over them to Richard Jones to talk us through the organisation response form and to really provide some assurance to us that as a robust action plan in place to address the points raised towards whales. So in the first instance, over to you, Carmen, please. Thank you very much, Chair. Yeah, I'll keep it brief and keep to the main points, but I think overall the assurance I'd like to give the committee is a really positive report about the day-to-day monitoring. I think we saw some really good examples of individual project management in terms of timescales and budget, as well as the monitoring of the programme in more of the traditional sense. And I think the challenge of the Council is what we're trying to take with a significant investment. I think it's 350 million, we point out early in the report over the last decade or so, is challenging the Council in how we can measure the impact of that investment going forward. And that's on a programme level as well as an individual project level. For example, we set out that we looked at three projects to sample in this report. We were looking at care homes and community halls. It's looking at how that investment at the outset, what's the intended benefit of that in terms of the Council's own objectives in their plan going forward, which I know have, that it's a safe place and a well-connected place, which really tie into those projects. But it's really seeing well, what measures can we, when we're making that investment, what's the intended benefit we hope to see in those areas. And a year, two years after those projects have finished, really going in to see, did we get what we intended from our investment in this programme? And it's not a way of, you know, or you didn't get what you want. It's hopefully an opportunity then that if it's not quite getting the intended benefit, that the Council has an opportunity to learn before investing the next 350 million over the next decade or so, finances allowing, of course. So yeah, but we saw some really good practice. It really stood out how the project teams involve the communities and the stakeholders in each of the project regularly and involve them in the design and development of the sites to give you the best chance of success and buy-in, which I think was really sort of notable practice in a way. So you see, we've only made two recommendations, each linked to the other around the points we make. One is around setting up the intended outcome of the capital programme and capital projects. And then secondly would be around reporting on progress of the outcomes and reflecting on those. So I'll pause there for questions, if that's okay, Chair. Yeah, thanks, Colwyn. Okay, questions and comments, please. Go on, Martin. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. The weird way that Audio Wales presents its reports, the summary is at the top of the contents page. And it says capital programme management arrangements demonstrate some strengths but lack focus on outcomes and impact. That's very different than what you just said, Colwyn, which is a, quote, really positive report. Can we cross out what's written in here and actually write down what you told us? Because I think I agree with what you said and not what's written here. I think the natural language of audit, especially written, will come across that way. I think it's just a stylistic thing. And I think even in that title, it is recognising the strengths and when you read the text report, we go on to balance those strengths. But I don't think it's an audit title if it's not presenting the challenge at the same time. Well, I had my attempt to laugh it off. But the problem is the document sits as a standalone report on the Audio Wales website, not to any contextualisation. And that headline is the first thing people will read. So it says some strengths but lack focus. I think that's a dreadful summary of the report. Last focus on outcomes. Yeah, but it's this, as I said to your colleague earlier, it's a lazy language of AE but plea. It should say demonstrably shows positive strengths. However, there are some small areas which need improvement. Some weighting between the first half and the second half of the sentence is vital for a lay reader to understand what's going on. And it doesn't do that. Okay, I appreciate the comment. The report has been finalised, unfortunately, and agreed and cleared with officers, but we reflect on it as we continue to write reports. Yep, that's all I can hope for. But whenever it is in the past, it hasn't been reflected upon. Okay, thank you. Okay, Sarah, please. Thanks, Cohen. I think that was really useful. I think it would be helpful, I understand in terms of a project, how one might set success metrics and know what it is to the project set out to achieve. And I agree that that should always be the focus and perhaps that needs to be brought more to the fore. But in terms of a programme as a whole, can you describe what would be good practice? I'm not entirely sure that I understand there. And also, you've very correctly picked out the capital maintenance backlog as a key risk for the authority. I'd be interested to know how we compare with other authorities. The comparison is difficult at this time. This project has only been delivered at Mon Masha to date, so we haven't got that comparison to hand, unfortunately. But there is a plan in our work programme over the next 18 months is a local government study that looks at the picture across Wales around capital planning. So hopefully, there'll be more learning from that. Back to the first part of the question, I think some of that boils down to strategy and what you're looking at. And it depends what your priorities, what those outcomes look like. But it could, I mean, it could be around. I mean, one of the top priorities or risks and we've prioritised is the maintenance programme and, you know, where there's emergency repairs that's on the top of the decision tree. So that's a clear priority in the strategy in terms of decision making. So I guess it's logging then against that maybe the number of incidents where a bill has had to be closed or that kind of thing to play its part in designing those outcomes of having the assets usable is obviously one of the biggest strengths. In terms of impact collectively against the objectives, that is really difficult. But I guess that would form part of the council's wider measurement of its performance against its objectives. And when investigating that, if there are any issues relating to assets that are reflected back and fed back to the capital programme as it's being discussed. Thanks. Yes, I mean, I think you identified that the prioritisation process was quite strong. So I'm struggling to understand what they put the prioritised, we have a good prioritisation process. How are we not looking at outcomes as a whole? I think it, I can't remember the word in the report. It's not necessarily a comment on the political decision making of prioritisation because that is your democratic right. But we still didn't see a measure of the success of that maintenance, if that makes sense as a prioritisation in terms of, I mean, it's really hard to see, you know, what has it prevented in a way is obviously difficult, but even a lack of incidents is proof of prevention, isn't it, on that priority. Thank you, Calvin. May I suggest we turn now to Richard Jones and possibly ask John Davies to interject as appropriate. So, Richard, could you just highlight the key actions we're looking to address, please, the timescales, and then if possible, John, I don't know if you're listening to Sarah's question, maybe sort of provide maybe a bit of an answer to what Sarah has set out. If not, that's fine. Richard, please, over to you. Thank you, Chair, and thank Calvin and colleagues and all the report and the introduction context given today. So the report has two recommendations within it. Our management response sets out the actions we'll take to respond to those. So with respect to recommendation one, which is about articulating the outcomes we want to achieve within our capital strategy to set out, I think our initial response is set out the arrangements we already have in place within that strategy. I know that report comes to the committee as well to ensure that our investments are aligned with our overall objectives in the community or corporate plan, and nonetheless recognizing the point that Carwin has raised about can that be stronger in how we set out those outcomes, particularly around, I think, how in measurement is key in your response. So that's something we'll look to further embed in the next capital strategy, and particularly align them back to our wider corporate plan objectives. And the next strategy is due to come forward in February 2025, so that's when that will be completed. Recommendation two then is about reporting on the outcomes we've set out to achieve and to seek assurance, and I suppose accountability that we've achieved them or how far we've taken in achieving them. Again, our response sets out so the arrangements are already in place. It recognizes the importance and linked role between the capital strategy and the asset management strategy, which obviously this committee is aware as well as similarly just being reviewed and supporting action plan that's in place for that. And again, how both of these are integral to align back to our organizational objectives within our community and corporate plan. So in terms of the specific actions we're going to undertake, firstly it's recognizing that the monitoring outcomes doesn't just sit in the capital strategy, it sits with those responsibility holders for capital projects themselves. So the capital strategy has a role there in setting out the arrangements they should follow and the expectations on them in terms of monitoring of outcomes. So in updating the strategy, we'll set out further detail about the expectations on capital project holders who are responsible to set those out and then include within the capital strategy a summary of our review, then using that information provided by capital project holders of whether we've achieved the outcomes we've set out. But again, in line with the first strategy coming back through, that will be completed in February 2025 and that will use existing outcome information for this year and then clearly, once that's set out, be strengthened going forward. And as I mentioned, a LinkedIn importer part of that is the asset management plan that sits under the asset management strategy and there'll be an annual report that reflects on the progress and outcomes of that with, again, due to come forward in February 2025, which is 12 months since the development and approval of the strategy. So that's how we can take it forward here. So thank you, Richard. That's really comprehensive. And reflecting on what I thought to hear Carmen say is that our overall approach is sound and these actions are really just about refining our approach, picking up on the outcome and monitoring of elements in particular. But John, have you anything to add at this stage, please? Thanks, Jay. I think Richard's covered it very well. The only supplementary for me, I think, is just to touch upon the very nature of capital schemes. They're usually multi-year. The outcomes of that investment usually provides a benefit for 25, 50 years. So it is something that's quite difficult to, you know, put a frame around and to quickly ascertain the benefits of that investment. The only thing to add is that the upcoming financial strategy that's due to come through Council will look to strengthen the links between our capital investment and the community and corporate plan and I guess really get to the heart of what our capital investment over the more medium term is looking to generate and the things that it's looking to achieve. So that capital strategy is just one of a number of enabling plans that sit below the community and corporate plan. And I think we have identified the need for them to talk to each other a lot more and for those interlinks to be strengthened. So welcome the recommendations in the report. I think they're absolutely the right ones to focus on. And it's been helpful for us in developing the wider financial strategy that's due to come through shortly. Thanks, Jim. Thanks, John. Peter, did you want to come in there, please? Thank you, Chair. It's only a brief input because I think Richard and John have captured everything well. I think I'm just picking up on Councillor Burch's point and sort of talking to that in part. So I guess the only two inputs I would make is, one, I think there is and has been an acknowledgement of some of the refinement of some of the governance arrangements that were featured within the asset management strategy, and they play across and outside of that to both capital and asset management. But in fact, I think, John, we sat down with Nicky's last week in order to almost further review that and its refinement. If we just talk about capital and our asset base, it's very easy to just fall into this sort of area of land and building. Our asset base is much more than that. We've got highways infrastructure, which is very significant. John Fleet, our IT assets, et cetera, all of which need to have suitable, robust levels of governance wrapped around them. And in terms of to the point I think you were making around prioritisation and a very careful balance where I guess funds available aren't sufficient to meet all of our needs. So I think through the capital strategy and taking on board, I think, points made well by Carowyn and in the report, some degree of strengthening in and through and around that. The only other point I think is just to recognise, and I think Carowyn has acknowledged it, this is actually just a degree of strengthening to what is actually quite a positive picture on the face of it back to Martin's point. I think if we reflect on some of the big pieces of the capital programme that we've seen in the last decade, 15 years or so, so let's just reflect on secondary schools. So we built secondary schools in Caldecott and in Monmouth. One informed the other in terms of the design and the immediate evaluation and outcome from it. And furthermore, into the 3-19 school in Abigavani. So just recognise that fact. Our approach has evolved accordingly. Similarly, I guess, in terms of on the sort of renewables net zero front, in terms of what we're seeing both in the 3-19 school now and learning taken from that, featuring in a Maygrandy community hub and in other acquisitions and refurbishments we're undertaking. So I think to the point of evaluation at a project level and in terms of how that's informing the capital programme as it evolves and moves forward, we have evidence and practice of that. I think the point being made, I think, by Carowyn is we just need to more coherently sort of capture and bring that together and I think that's akin to what Rich has talked about in terms of how we're responding to the recommendations. Thank you all. All of that sounds really sensible and very supportive of the action plan as it aligns. Okay, may I suggest we move on to items 9 and 10. I suggest we take them together. So if we go back to Julie and maybe just briefly touch upon the annual audit summary recognising that it's mainly for noting and then maybe just highlight the key points of the Q3, the quarterly update paper as item 10. Over to you, Julie. Okay, thank you, Chair. So our annual audit summary, this report summarises the work carried out in the last year and it's a summary really of the outputs that have already been reported to you and discussed by you in previous committee meetings. Just a quick overview of our financial audit work for 22/23. So our financial audit opinions were issued in January and for the main accounts in February 2024 of this year which, as we've already talked about, was later than planned, mainly due to the impact of our new audit approach. Our grant claim work for 22/23 is largely complete, with the exception of housing benefits, which is currently in progress. The headline messages from our performance work are also included. We've just discussed the capital programme review with Carwyn, so I won't repeat that, but we've also set up the main conclusions from our wellbeing objective review and the use of performance information reviews as well. There's also reference in there to our ongoing theme matic and local performance work which will be reported in due course. So that's all I wanted to cover, so I'm happy for any comments or questions from you. Thank you. Do we have any questions or comments? Martin. Thank you. I'm not sure that page 25 of the bundle, when it says, looking back at the 22/23 accounts, the third bullet down there says the audit was delivered later than previous year is mainly due to the impact of new financial standard requirements. I was under the very strong impression that there were staffing issues involved as well, so it's mainly due to a bit of heavy lifting there. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that was a sort of significant impact, the new audit standard requirements, but yes, we have obviously talked with you at previous audit committees as well about our staffing and resourcing pressures as well. So yeah, that was a contributing factor amongst other things as well as other issues coming up. Okay, and without labouring the point, we turn the page, page 26, all three performance reports, the summaries, all have the magic but word in it again. They all say something, but something, all three of them do. It's an awful stylistic way of doing it. Please think about changing it. Yeah, as we mentioned in, as mentioned, we'll note that, we'll note your comments on that one. Yeah. Questions? Any other questions or comments? Nope, I think we're good. So, thank you in conclusion then. Thank you, Judy. Thank you, Carwin. Sorry, Chair, to interrupt. I didn't actually take it to the work programme and timetable, but again, that was really just a repeat of what's in the annual audit summary and some detail in there about in terms of progress against our key projects, the performance audit work. So, apologies for that. No, that's fine. That's fine. Sorry, I can see Martin's hand. Martin's keen to come in. So, Martin, over to you again. Again, just when a number of reports come together, it's obvious to read across the two and just spotting accuracy and the financial audit work, the front page of generatum 10, it says timetable accounts to be certified by February 24 and of course, the previous paper says the timetable was the 30th of November 23. So, if that can be corrected, that'd be really helpful. Thank you. Yeah, we'll note that. Good. Carwin. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, I was just going to mention on the national reports, there's mention of corporate joint committees which appear very like touch commentary on those and obviously, there's a lot of funding that's there. So, I wonder what we can expect going forward so we can monitor those. I can take this, Julie, if you're happy with that. Yeah, thanks, Carwin. So, the corporate joint committees are in the room for seeing that the national study was there as they were setting up, as you say, it was quite a light commentary but as they are a duty, as they are a body, they will be producing annual accounts. We will have the same duties for the corporate joint committees as we do for any council which applies to our duties around proper arrangement, securing economy, efficiency and effectiveness as well as our duties in the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act about how they apply the sustainable development principle. Those duties kick in when a body produces full accounts. So, sometimes in the infancy, they do a limited assurance return which is smaller and it's when they produce their fuller accounts that the performance audit work will kick in there but once they reach the threshold, there will be an annual programme of work at the corporate joint committee as with other bodies that we audit. Thank you, thank you, Chair. I'm not seeing any other hands. So, unless there's anything else, Julie and Carwin, can I say thank you for your contribution. You're very welcome to stay but equally we'll understand if you've got better things to do. Okay, thank you, Chair. Okay, let's move on to item 11. Right, item 11 is the draft, otherwise draft, Freedom of Information and Data Protection Act Preachers and Data Subject Access Requests paper. It's a bit of a mouthful. So, very grateful I think we've got Sian Heywood here as well as Kath Evans to talk us through it. So, please over to you. Yes, hello, members. I'm Sian Heywood, Head of Information Security and IT for Monmouthshire County Council and I'm here to take you through the report. Now, you've got all of the information in front of you and I'm sure you've read all of the details of the report itself but just to remind you that this is a report about the Freedom of Information Act and the Data Protection Acts. They're both governed by legislation and we can receive penalties if we if we get it wrong but actually it's our disruption to our reputation and our information which is far more important to us than anything else. Most of our information is in a digital format as everything is these days and we we are very conscious that if we lose it, that information could be quite catastrophic if it's in the wrong hands. So, we like to target the changes the way we record the information, making it easier for us to extract the relevant data when we need to. We can have requests for any data that we hold whether it's in paper format, in digital format or in recording the meetings, I think now as well. And the requests can come into us in any sort of format whether it's for Freedom of Information or Environmental Impact requests. We can only refuse to disclose the information if it's covered by an exemption and we we really don't want to go down that route if we possibly can because we are absolutely committed to giving that information out to whoever needs it. We don't want to hide anything. We actively promote the Freedom of Information Request Act. We actually actively help anybody who wants to come in and ask for that information and we actively train our staff to have the same approach as we do in the Corporate Centre. So, we actively encourage people to put in an internal review request if they feel that we've mishandled their request in any way, shape or form and that results in me actually sitting down and going through the request with the service areas concerned and making absolutely certain that we've dealt with this request properly. That has resulted in a big increase in the number of requests that we get for internal reviews. I believe that it's probably sort of increased the number of disputes that we have and the difficulty that we have in actually dealing with all these Freedom of Information and Environmental Impact Requests that we get. The sort of technicality of these requests coming in is growing by the day. The number of disgruntled people coming in getting these requests is growing by the day. But we are very, very pleased to have actually covered 92% or 95% of our requests, which is a really high target for us to actually meet compared to other local authorities and indeed other areas of legislation and governance that we have throughout the Council. So you can rest assured that we actively use all of this information that we've got to publish on the website, we publish our statistics on the website, we publish all the information we possibly can on the website to help people to self-serve and we actively promote the information that we provide out to everybody here. I don't know whether you want to ask me questions of detail and if you do then we've got Kath Ebonshire who deals with the detail day in day out, whereas I don't actually deal with the detail day in day out. So please ask us any questions that you may want to have. Thank you. Phil? Yes, thank you Sian. Pretty high closure rate on these. Do we tend to find that people are happy with the responses they get? Do we get much feedback after? People are very happy with the responses we give them as long as the response is what they want to hear. So yeah, the problems we have is not that we're refusing to give them information but it's not the information that they want to hear often they're trying to find information about how the council works or they they really want to complain about something so they're trying to get that information to formulate a complaint. But we have most of our complaints or most of the people who are dissatisfied are vested in one or two people throughout the the county. So even though you may have seen an increase in internal reviews and notifications of the ICO, most of those are from one or two individuals. So it boosts up our stats making us look as if people are dissatisfied but actually the majority of people are more than satisfied and we do help people even sort of to give informal information rather than putting it through a full-blown FOI request as well. That's what I anticipate and I'm pleased to hear it having been the recipient of one particular individual. I hasten to add at the community council level but 351 FOI requests in one month was slightly over the top. Yes so can I go to Roger first Peter and then come to you. Roger please. Thanks Shere. In terms of the report obviously I think we welcome the significant improvement in the request closed on time over the last couple of years. I was just wondering about a target for the for the council in terms of that compliance and you know we you know is there a best practice figure because 95% at the moment for the last calendar year seems very good to me. 95% is exceptionally good. We do have an actual target I believe and I believe our target is yeah I know we've exceeded it. I was thinking 92 but you think it might be 93. Going back to the sort of Covid days when we had considerable resource pressures as in as they did in the service areas as well we weren't doing anything like that that completion rate it was probably hovering around about the 75% so we've done exceptionally well to improve that rate up to 95%. We really are doing well and that is a genuine statistic not one that we've manipulated in any way. No I think 95% is very good and you know it should be acknowledged that's brilliant. Thanks Shere. Okay go to Pete Strong please. Yeah thank you just a couple of straightforward questions for clarification. I think the first one might be what you were alluding to in the previous one. You note a significant number of the reviews have been requested by a single inquirer. Are they all on the same general subject or are they a wide range of subjects? If it's the same general subject are we allowed to know what that subject is? That's my first question. The second question is on the data protection breaches. You report the ones you know about is it your sense that there are maybe a few or even a lot of others which are hopefully minor that never never get reported to you or you don't know about a bit like crime figures we only know the crimes that are reported not the ones that happen but but don't get as far as the police. The ones that you know we've been really successful in in making sure that people feel able to report their um their sort of data breaches near misses so we've seen an awful lot more reporting coming in because people are feeling more able to do it and they recognize the importance of doing it and that's through no great effort as the team who are constantly out there talking to people training advising guiding and making it make making people feel less afraid to report a breach so we get a considerable amount of we've had a massive increase in the the amount of breaches that were reported to us um and we are really grateful for that it isn't it isn't that we've got more breaches it's just that more are coming in it's inevitably going to be some that we that we'll miss or people won't report to us but that's getting like fewer and fewer as far as the single inquirer is concerned um most of the inquiries are sort of about the location that you know like geographical location environmental impact request which is slightly different legislation without being sort of putting too much emphasis on this it could be any subject from that one individual they will ask anything. Have I just come back on the um data breaches of it are many people um sort of referring themselves when they become aware that they made a breach and they refer themselves or is it all or I'd say for me nothing but is that rather than um the victims or even other people who noticed it reporting the breach? We get an absolute mixture in honesty um generally staff will come straight to us um through our training and awareness that we do throughout the course of the year we're trying to sort of flag that we're here you know should should there be an issue and let us know no matter how small is um so we do find that more and more people tell us about what might not be a breach but it's an incident you'll see that report we report that too now to ourselves keep a list of those incidents because obviously that can train we can do something we can inform our training with those incidents you know the near misses if you will um so we do get a mixture of that and inevitably we do also get members of the public coming to us and say we've got this and we shouldn't have it because it's maybe gone out on a letter it's gone out to an email but generally we're finding that mostly staff will notice something has happened and come to us with it and we're the ones who are able to go to the members of the public and say this has happened we're very sorry about it you know and so you know obviously on the front foot of that is much better if we can do so yeah thank you very much so and we we do try and encourage that that we put our hand up and we say we're very sorry we've got that wrong you know please help us to make it right go to Sarah please I was on a similar question actually whether the majority of those data breaches are accidental human error somebody putting the wrong letter in an envelope in the wrong envelope or the sending the wrong email to the wrong person or whether there are sort of malicious malicious whether we've had malicious data breaches in the last year or so. 79 percent of them are to do with emails right so emails go into the wrong person and I wish I kept the statistics on this and perhaps I should going forward on how much of that is down to autofill you know where people actually put the you know they start type say Catherine and they see Catherine pop up in the box so they just click on that person there they sit and then they send the email and go oh wrong Catherine you know it's so easy done and you know you know everybody's done it I've done it myself in the past you know the problem with that is if you're just sending to a colleague and it's a you know a very low level email that doesn't matter as much but if it's obviously a sensitive one that contains personal data then obviously it does matter when we put that down as a breach and we would report that and follow it through robustly even internally so even if um say I sent something to a service area so it's a colleague within Monmouthshire and depending on the sensitivity shall we call it of what's within that email we would log it as a breach if we felt it was something that somebody a colleague in a certain service area shouldn't have seen had access to. Thank you and with regard to the FOI request and the other request is there a threshold at which really there's a disproportionate amount of resource being taken up by a vexatious complainant for want of a better word and what's our threshold for that I'll hand that one back to you Sian. No Sian deals with the internal reviews so yeah the threshold um there is a threshold that we can reach it's it's very hard to reach that threshold period simply because you have to go into a considerable amount of work to prove that that threshold has been reached. As a general rule it's 18 and a half hours spent on one particular subject area but of course if that 18 and a half if that goes out to many service areas of the council you have to add all those 18 and a half hours up and then we go back to the person and then we try and help them to refine their query to make sure that that query then can be more manageable. I would say that the the single complaint that we've got is tries to ask for too much information and of course when we try and help them to condense it down that's what the complaints for the internal review are is that they don't want to condense it down no they can't see how how it can possibly take that long to do that that amount of work but um we've only once um sort of it's not the complainant who's vexatious it's it's the the request is the vexatious request so so it's not the complainant who who's as a personality who's vexatious we've only once has to apply that rule and that was only for that specific request itself it didn't apply to any other requests that they might have made. Thank you I mean obviously there is a public duty of openness but you get to the point where there are difficult choices made about resource allocation and how many hours of care could perhaps be purchased in the time taken to answer people somebody's questions. Yes that is a very very valid point for us and it it's very wearing on members of the staff particularly when you're getting a lot of complaints about you know and disputes about the information you provided but we have a duty of care to the the service areas of the council that they're not over inundated with these requests which are legislative legislative requests at the end of the day we have to give them an answer. Okay thank you we'll go to Colin next then Tony Colin. Thank you chair um I think I asked this question last year but I'll ask it slightly differently this year um with with um uh integrity and public service you know not as best these days um in in the public perception uh can you tell me with subject access requests and with freedom of information are you relying upon the veracity of the information holder for producing that information for you to to forward on or are you interrogating that that data to ensure that that full disclosure is made? Yes um both you know we we obviously rely on our service areas because they know their information best they know what they have they know what's there but sometimes we do talk to them and say have you checked this area is do you have more than this year because obviously we we sometimes know a little more about what the person's asking for so we're able to work with them to interrogate their information that they hold so and generally it would be the sub it would be the service area who would know best what they hold but occasionally we do go into those conversations and say well what about sometimes we do need to go to a different service area you know sometimes and when we're seeing this with freedom of information and subject access requests they're becoming much more complex so you know some of those requests and you'll see in the subject access request that will sometimes involve the entire authority you know so have to go to many service areas to pull in that information from lots of different lots of different areas and that's where we would get more involved with the right we've asked those two teams oh sorry we've asked those two teams but now we need to go across these two teams and see if they've got something that could complement that that could go out to the requester. Thank you Tony yeah we've asked this question actually about these emails emails really are distorted in the complete picture aren't they and when you consider the half a million a week maybe millions millions over a year um how can how can that detail be not hidden but put in the right proportion because that completely distorts the overall picture of department really 11 11 other others and three paper records other than that lots and lots of emails so can that be presented in a different way it looks bad 52 pound but didn't we know it's not bad or it doesn't look good. I know what you mean because we're talking about um the number of instances of this happening is minute in proportion to the number of emails that are going out but when you were looking at those statistics themselves um it's very hard to present them in a different way that may because there are so few errors in the first place if you have an error rate of 80 it looks massive but if you're only talking about 80 of five errors out of millions and millions of different emails I'm we will try we will try that put that into into a different different context statistically because I take your point it doesn't make us look very good whereas in fact we are really really good. Martin thank you some of that's really helpful context I think the issue with the 52 emails is it might be minute but for the individual whose data has been shared it's enormous and so we need to find a way to because the number is consistent it's not going down so lessons are not particularly being learned perhaps that autofill thing should be removed from systems that might be a way of dealing with it and if we have some repeat offenders do we have a word with repeat offenders to actually make sure that they they catch those things. My other point about the point you're making about all the work you have to do to go and ask this department grass that department ask this serious area is are we good at filing our data SharePoint whatever it is and having an organization wide so you don't have to do an endless trawl fishing trip every time a request comes in because it's all held in one place. Yeah to transfer that one yes with SharePoint online it is getting better you know in as much as every service area has had to review what they've got you know and put that you know to migrate over to SharePoint online and it's becoming more efficient for us because they're able to just send us a link we're able to access it that way rather than them having to download it and trawl through all different so it's actually getting better and easier so that the efficiency on that should and is getting getting slicker. And perhaps I would autofill to stop people. Sorry that was the other thing I was looking at you then think I will remember what it was you mentioned before that yeah the autofill and we do exactly that if somebody's had because we obviously track who's said to things if somebody if somebody has repeatedly had an issue with autofill then you know we ask them to turn it off we don't want to be big brother we don't want to go in them and turn it off for them which we could do um you know we could work with the SRS to do so but you know we try and encourage people not to do so we've also showed them hints and tips there's ways of taking people out of your autofill and that's a training that people don't realize that they can you know lots of people don't realize until they've had an incident that they can take things out to take people out of their autofill so that's something we've put into our training now to show people how to do that and particularly in those service areas such as social care where they're dealing with a lot of very personal data on a day-to-day basis that's very helpful because in the early days of the Welsh assembly as was uh there was one mailing list for all a all AMs including the government and the opposition parties and there were two very similar names and yeah that's the kind of mistake you don't want to make too often no but but generally in terms of the support and Colin alluded to I'll ask this question last year so I'll ask it again this year what I guess we need to see is that learning from this now we've got a body of evidence growing the so what question I'd like to see I sort of perhaps for next year as a result of finding these things we've beaten somebody over the knuckles or we've changed the system and things are getting harder to get wrong yeah I'd be more than happy to show you particularly because SharePoint will be through and embedded by that point but particularly you know more than happy to be able to show you some of those particulars that's really helpful thanks can I just add that the risk element of somebody doing something wrong is often outweighed by the business benefits of having that that particular feature turned on if you talked about the autofill for me to have to go in and individually type in all those email addresses any single time would be loaded as an operational business benefit be it awful if it was turned off so we have to assess the risk going forward yeah okay thank you I think we've had a very good discussion on this paper so let's turn back to the recommendation of 2.1 I think you know based on the discussion and the the helpful sort of questions and answers I think we as committee can be reassured of the adequacy and effectiveness of these arrangements respect of how management are dealing with information requests and breaches so thank you Sean, Kath please feel free to to to depart or stay if you wish if you haven't quite had enough okay let's move on to items 12 and 13 we take each one in turn I'll start with item 12 those are the contract procedure rules exemptions and I'll hand over to Jan Fertuk our chief internal auditor to talk us through the paper over to you Jan. Thank you chair yes this report is to inform the governance and order committee of the number of exemptions requested by operational managers during the previous six months and to identify any issues of non-compliance with the process or any adverse trends so although contract procedure rules were written to ensure a consistent and fair approach to how officers procure works goods and services on behalf of the council there'll always be occasions where full compliance may not be appropriate or even possible provided there is sufficient justification and appropriate approval for not following these rules the policy does recognize this management need to ensure that the use of exemptions is proper and they're not being used for convenience or to otherwise avoid contract procedure rules exemptions are therefore administered by internal audit although approvals are given by heads of service chief officers and or members of the cabinet previously managers have been invited to attend governance and order committee meetings to explain to members their reasons for seeking an exemption rather than complying with the rules at this point I am not recommending that any managers be called into governance and order committee as a result of this report it is important to note that this process does only capture the exemptions which have been requested and returned to internal audit there may be instances where officers have completed procurement exercises or extended existing contracts without following the procedure set within the rules to help mitigate this comprehensive guidance documents and a set of faqs are available via the internal website for officers who conduct procurement exercises so of the nine requested exemptions during the reporting period which was october 23 to march 24 four were returned to internal audit as required and were correctly authorized one was authorized by the head of service but was missing commentary from procurement one was no longer required after the form was issued and disappointingly three were not returned the comments of myself regarding the requested exemptions can be seen within the table at appendix three it's pleasing to note that where forms have been returned these contained appropriate justifications as to why exemptions were required so as of the time of writing the report three exemptions had not been returned the respective officers were contacted on a number of occasions prior to writing the report to ascertain the current status but at the time no proper properly completed authorized forms have been received one of these has subsequently been received one of them is currently in progress and the other one is on hold at the moment these were all within the same service area and has been raised with the respective chief officer who has put appropriate controls and procedures in place to ensure this does not take place going forward we were informed that for each of these three they were for extensions of existing contracts the extension had already taken place without the approval being demonstrated in accordance with contract procedure rules and further details included within appendix three overall it's requested that the governance nordic committee accepts and acknowledges the justifications for the exemptions provided by the operational officers however if committee do not accept these justifications consideration could be made to calling in the respective officer and their respective head of service or chief officer to account for the reasons why they did not comply with contract procedure rules at the time of the procurement i propose to give governance nordic committee an update report in six months time with this and happy to answer any questions okay thank you yarn got a phil please yeah thank you chair and i appreciate that you've already taken measures but can we just sort of establish do we have any serial offenders here you know is it does it tend to be the same department i'm not i'm not asking you to name individuals of course not but um you know is is there an area that tends not to comply with this or um is that making too much of it as i said it was one service area they within that service area but i'm talking more generally i think in in generally it was this one service area and when we considered the previous um report that i presented as well um hence why the chief officer has now put in these mitigation because obviously they had spoken to spoken to officers in the service area previously and now she's putting additional controls in place so hopefully by the time i report back in six months time we won't have any issues uh yeah just just one further comment i guess is which is i think just a contextual point uh coming off what councilor murphy's just touched on and yeah and jana will know because he's engaged and involved in in some of these conversations um so a procurement so a revised procurement strategy was brought through uh last year there's a discrete area of focus in that which is obviously to look to continue to strengthen i guess the arrangements uh around compliance uh the need for um you know really robust forward-looking contract register and when you've got those sorts of things in place uh any systems in place wrapped around that then um it provides foresight so you really shouldn't get into yourself into situations where you've got contracts coming towards an end and you need into i guess go into a process of looking to secure an exemption because you've got the procurement process uh you know in place in train well ahead so i know that work is ongoing um and equally um yan's opened up discussion with procurement really equally just in terms of where some of these responsibilities sit around cpr exemptions and the like um but as i said it's a work in progress um you know and if if that if that other part of the machinery is strengthened then it should lessen what you'll see coming through you by way of cpr exemptions thank you uh we'll go to tony next please yeah thank you your report yan um when did you last speak to the service manager about these three exams these three requests for exemptions they were issued in february and march when did you last speak to the service manager at this morning um what assurance what assurance are you giving you um so one of them is now with the cabinet member for this final sign-off um and the other one is waiting for officers to come back to the chief officer with further details so by the next meeting in july they won't technically appear there then fingers crossed and the thing if if your fingers don't get crossed what are we going to do that will be up for committee to decide obviously you've got it's got some options you could call in the operational manager head of service chief officer if you felt that was necessary um but we'll we'll take that um during the next meeting if it's um if it's required well i think it'd be useful if you said to the service manager we're considering today but we've held off for now i can feedback that back definitely thank you thank you yeah i think um i think that probably that point is um well received i think uh by yam furthermore and you'll probably detect uh without getting into any level of detail that the the relevant chief officer to yan's point has taken on board and made changes to take effect to this not happening again um so this is you know these um this pattern of incident has clearly been taken note of and reflected upon um let's also highlight that it entertains quite a painful conversation because in a lot of instances when the cpr exemptions that have been or should have been completed and are needing to be now retrospectively completed they are having to come through me and i am drilling those to understand as to why the circumstances have arisen uh making sure that i'm satisfied that um you know affording the exemption is the right thing to do and also getting confidence that it's not going to happen again so it's just to provide that further uh further level of clarity i guess in terms of the conversations that are playing out in the background um but all of this comes about and helpfully as a result of i guess the the lens that's being applied here in the reports that are being brought forward to governance and audit committee thank you thank you peter um martin really pleased to hear peter's comments at the end um just an observation and a question the observation i i for the life of me don't know why this comes from the chief internal auditor shouldn't this be a report that routinely comes from head of procurement it's a procurement responsibility it doesn't feel like an order it's not an audit is it it's it's a it's a process which has been breached i think that's kind of what i what i call it and um yeah in terms of the the general point i mean are any of these exemptions because of a lack of planning which i think you hinted at earlier i mean so if they run out of time to run a procurement process so they just extended existing even though they weren't allowed to is that something that happens a lot or are we trying to get people to plan and shed your extensions properly yeah that can be a reason why people have gone through the exemption process that they haven't left themselves sufficient time to be able to undertake a full tender process um but the exemption process does cover a range of different areas it could be that the item is a specialist um specialist procurement so there's only one available supplier so in to ensure that we get best value and that we've got appropriate visibility and approval that goes through this process it could also be that the it's an existing contract that already has provision for an extension within that contract so again to ensure there's visibility instead of officers just enacting a extension straight away um that it goes through the process just so we've got that chief officer approval and oversight of it to hold managers to account so it it's a range of things it's not just that it's a lack of doing something that's not always the case did you want to pick up martin's first comment about authorship of his paper yeah so i think it's this is a role that's historically been uh been assigned to the internal audit team um we just coordinate the process at the moment um so an officer will come to us with a request for a form we'll give them the form that's our involvement done until the form comes back in except for the officer to take that forward to procurement to get their comments to get the appropriate approval and then it comes back to us for login just to um to complete this report and provide our oversight on the entire process and to provide my commentary back to committee then to say whether the reports were and the approvals were justified we're over to get an answer because it's always been done like that isn't necessarily the answer i was looking for um yeah i think um i think the legacy in the history to this is um it's probably in the days of control stationery yeah to be perfectly honest with you i think that's probably where it's arisen i mean in terms of making sure that there is you know robustness to that um but um yeah um it's the matter of fact here is that there's been capacity constraints uh you know within uh procurement um they've obviously moved into the wider collaboration now with cardiff and you know there's an ambitious program of work now through the revised procurement strategy i think we're just being um collegiate i guess in terms of acknowledging some of the pressures and where their focus has to be in the immediacy uh to your point martin i think we will get ourselves as i've acknowledged to a point where we will look to actually position this back into procurement we'll just do it at the right time and when we've got the the right processes in place to allow for that yeah i think that's a sensible approach and maybe the the hook in for me is the implementation of a new internal audit standards which is due sometime next year so opportunities to reflect on the current responsibilities of internal audit and taking the view as to whether they continue to be appropriate in the context of those standards okay um just if we by means of concluding this item if we go back to the recommendation under 2.1 we'd be asked to accept and acknowledge the justifications for the exemptions provided by officers and bearing around the conversation we've we've had i think on on the whole i think we can be justified we can accept and and and accept acknowledge the justifications some broadly content with that okay if we move on then to a second um paper from yan that is the internal audit annual report for the last financial year yan can you just talk us through the key points please yep thank you chair yes the purposes item is the governance and audit committee receive comment on and endorse the internal internal audit annual report for 2023-24 financial year so the annual report provides an overall opinion for members on the internal controls operating within the county council and provides a summary of the work completed during the year we identify key findings and outcomes from the work undertaken it also outlines the performance of the internal audit team during the year against our preset targets so as committee are aware the internal audit team started the year with an establishment of 5.5 full-time equivalent with an audit manager and a senior to vacancy so that's two full-time equivalents shortly at the start after the start of the year the chief internal officer which was the 0.5 left the authority and myself commenced enroll as the audit manager in april 23 and immediate fulfill fulfilled the head of internal audit responsibilities for the remainder of the year the collaboration agreement which was previously in place between monmisha county council and newport city council for the shared chief internal order to service was put on hold while both councils considered their future operating models during the 23-24 year the deputy chief executive and chief officer for resources along with the chair of the committee and myself considered the future delivery model for internal audit and a report regarding this was considered by the committee in april 24. during the year the senior auditor post was also successfully recruited to with the post holder commencing work in august 24. so due to the planned vacancies within the team additional resource was to be procured from an outside agency to help us meet the plan originally an agreement was reached for 40 days which would undertake four reviews of support however due to the budget situation of the council only 20 days or two reviews was actually provided however this was deemed acceptable from myself given the excellence performance of the team up to that time the public sector internal audit standards require myself as the chief internal order to provide an annual opinion based upon and limited to the work performed on the overall adequacy and effectiveness of the governance framework risk management and internal control based on the planned work undertaken during the year in my view the internal controls up in operation give reasonable assurance to the council the overall opinion has been compiled from individual audit reviews taken during the year which are detailed in appendix b to the report and consideration of previous year's opinions over the course of the year the team issued 37 audit opinions and this compared to 25 during the previous year although it's planned that we issue 47 opinion related jobs within the 24-25 plan which is a very challenging target for the opinions issued during 23-24 they are made up of 27 positive opinions those being eight substantial 18 reasonable and one unqualified grand audit however it is disappointing to note that nine unfavorable opinions were issued across the year being eight limited assurance and one qualified grant order there was a significant increase in the number of reviews where a negative assurance rating was provided and this is of natural concern it will need to be closely monitored to see if any pattern emerges the reviews subject to an unfavorable opinion to confirm where chepstow school till float reconciliations commissioning and contracts employee general expenses employee travel claims children looked after savings private sector leasing democratic services and governance and the pupil development grant the reasons why these reviews are considered to be of limited assurance has been presented to the committee over the course of the year via my quarterly reports with the exception of those issued during quarter four extracts from those reports issued during quarter four are detailed within the annual report and can be found as appendices g to i in addition to the planned work a number of reactive jobs were also undertaken by the team these are designed to add value to the organization and for the team to be responsive to any new or emerging risks and this will continue during 24-25 we also complete added value non-opinion work this is shown as appendix d which is mainly financial advice and monitoring of the implementation of recommendations along with the coordination of the council's annual governance statement during the 23-24 year the audit team have continued to follow up on reviews where previous limited order opinions have been issued and it's pleasing to report that where the most recent follow-up review has been conducted the areas examined have received more favorable opinions so during the year two previously unfavorable reviews were followed up these be in tinton old station and our lady in st michaels a roman catholic school both of which have now received a more favorable reasonable opinion the audit team have continued to respond to allegations of fraud or regularities across the organization and no major frauds were identified during the year in relation to our normal business operations the audit team have been involved in five special investigations during the course of the year and details of those can be found in section seven of the report in considering my annual audit opinion the internal audit report for the shared resource service which is completed by torvine county borough council internal audit team was reviewed and this report will be presented to the july 24 meeting of the this committee the internal audit opinions undertaken by the at the srs by the torvine audit team were taken into consideration the srs of the council's it providers so assurances have been provided on the adequacy of controls in place within that organization to demonstrate effective governance risk management and internal control the torvine audit team have undertaken an external quality assessment as per the public sector standards and staff are appropriately qualified to undertake this work they have deemed that the shared resource service would have an annual opinion of satisfactory in terms of the monwisher's audit team's performance it as shown in appendix g 82 percent of the agreed plan was completed against a target of 80 excluding finalization work 62 audit jobs were completed and were included within the audit plan and 51 of those have been completed to at least draft report stage appendix c of the report shows the jobs which were not completed in draft at the end of the year so the majority of those have been included within the 24 25 audit plan with the exception of council tax which did have some coverage as part of 23 24 as part of a different completed job so that will be included within the following year's plan now the other review not carried forward was therapeutic practice and that was due to reprioritization of jobs within social services as a measure of the quality of work produced the team is able to report that 100 of its recommendations were accepted by service managers get an audit reports out to clients in a timely manner is a key aspect of maintaining our relationship with officers and ensuring weaknesses are addressed at an early stage and the team's targets for this were met at the end of each audit review we send out a client evaluation questionnaire which are returned by managers 100 of those returned were deemed the service to be satisfied or very satisfied with what they had received officers do have the opportunity to discuss any concerns within the audit process directly with myself at any stage so i can confirm to committee that the audit team have met their objectives for the 23 24 financial year these objectives will be amended slightly for the 24 25 year to include a further objective regarding increasing the amount of and visibility of anti-forward work across the organization which we will help to coordinate i therefore ask committee to endorse this report and happy to answer any questions okay thank you yarn a very very comprehensive introduction and in particular mayor thank you for answering a number of the comments i made to you earlier this week before i go to members i think it's important that i say how pleased i am personally of the great work even the team's done over the last 12 months i think it's a real credit to you you and the team and and and we're absolutely i'm really pleased by the um all to the opinion that you feel able to to be to to give that is really important so thank you questions or comments please mark gonna go martin first then phil martin thank you chair you uh just to strongly echo what you just said uh it's a remarkable piece of work um given some of the staff still significant restructuring and reorganization we've had in the year to deliver 34 pieces of work against 20 and 22 in the previous years is is a terrific outcome particularly since you mentioned we actually didn't use all the days that we were thinking of using from the contractors as well which is which again is another positive point uh so it only reflects well on on you and your team can ask a general question about um the limited assurance opinions because in previous years they were two and one and this year i think the report is eight but you listed nine because you mentioned pdg as an extra as an extra one um that's seems to me to be quite a significant uplift in terms of the number of limited assurance reports we've had this year is that because of a general deterioration in controls or is it because management are asking you to shine the torch in the darkest recesses of the organization and and you've found some nasties in the corners um yeah i wouldn't necessarily say it's a deterioration of of controls i do think that chief officers have engaged appropriately with myself and my team and have asked us to look at like you said those nasty areas um a couple of those being the unplanned reviews that we looked at in employee mileage employee general expenses um the negative opinion for um children looked after savings again was requested by the chief officer to look at knowing full well that there probably wasn't the controls that should have been in place but given that there was national issues she wanted that to be looked at and brought to the front so i don't think it's necessarily a deterioration in overall control um but obviously there's areas that need to be strengthened and officers are and chief officers are fully engaged within that process and know to come to the team to get that assurance and we can work together to put things in place excuse me sorry can i just just one object we follow up it's just an observation on anything else a couple of times the report you refer to the work done by towing's internal team regarding the srs and i think the phrase you've said in here take into consideration i don't know what that means exactly and perhaps in future years you could actually put a list of the audit works that have done and the outcomes as well because clearly we've got all all the the 34 pieces of work you've done with significant limited etc we haven't seen any of that for the srs and again it would be helpful since you are taking into consideration if they were listed in here i don't need an answer for now yeah no i fully appreciate that in previous years it has been listed within the annual report um the issue that we had this year is that the srs report was still in draft at the time these became the papers for today's meeting was public made public um hence why it's not on issued it was not on the agenda for today's meeting either um so that's why it's not included because it hadn't been formally approved and accepted by the srs board at that at the stage of producing these papers so it'll come through committee at the next meeting okay brilliant thank you much that's helpful and phil yeah you pretty well and answered this question because it's allied to the the previous one and it all sounds pretty positive but the question i was going to ask you was um when you get from route from a limited um classification um it tends to come out better when you've had the second look are you overall happy with the degree of cooperation do you find you have to push people or or is there a readiness to to um climb up to a better classification yeah um as with any order and delivering of bad news to people there can be some pushback occasionally and we look to work with chief officers and management and office and other officers to ensure that they're fully engaged within the process um i've got no overall concerns to bring to the committee regarding that everybody seems to be engaged within the process as i mentioned 100 of our recommendations have been accepted by officers um we try to have those those conversations and be quite open with officers that we work with them to make sure the recommendations or some agreed actions have been accepted by all parties um as you said when reports come back through audit committee after we've done a follow-up review generally they'll receive a more favorable opinion and that's testament to the operational managers putting those controls in place obviously if we did come back in however many months time and reported to you there was consecutive unfavorable opinions then it would be within the gift of the committee to consider calling in relevant officers and to discuss those further as to why the control environment in audits opinion didn't improve and we have in fact done that in the past so we wouldn't be too worried about doing it again yep agreed and sarah please thanks chair yeah i think it's absolutely testament to the hard work of of your team and also to the excellence of service managers given that the the pressures that they are under i was just concerned about the the issue with young people's savings um obviously the council has a fiduciary duty as well as a duty as a corporate parent so it's quite shocking that monies that could actually change the life of an 18 year old and not in their in their hands and that they have the skills to uh to deal with that money um can you assure us that that's been fixed for those young for those young people as a matter of urgency which i realize is not entirely in your hands because it's it's down to the service but yeah thank you um just to be sure it's not so much to reassure committee but to let committee aware that it isn't this is a national issue um with these particular saving schemes um it's not just in monmasha there are reports available through a number of different news outlets regarding um issues um regarding it um it's probably worth saying that the amount probably would not be seen as significant for the young people when they reach 18 we're not talking huge amounts here um but obviously it's it's amounts of money that would be owed to 18 year olds when when they turn 18 a varying different amounts um we've obviously done our work we've reported back to the chief officer they've accepted the recommendations they've come back with agreed actions um as i said proof will be is when we do the follow-up review in a couple of months time to see if those actions have been implemented and how far along um we've now got to address in our original concerns thanks okay so i'm not seeing any any other hands up so we look to wrap this item up if i draw your attention to paragraph two the recommendation we've been asked to receive comment on and endorse the annual report i think we can safely do that and once again thanks to yarn and the team we move on to the next agenda item which is the treasury management annual out turn report and if i hand over to john davis head of finance to talk us take us through the key points over to you john uh thank you jay uh not quite the graveyard shift so i'm grateful for that one um so yeah this is the uh fourth uh report we've brought on in-year performance on treasury management activity during the year um what that does mean is that um it's probably a lot more brief than uh we've we've brought to committee previously in terms of an out-turn report um and consequently it's the earliest i think we've we've ever brought a treasury out-turn report to this committee which um i think is helpful because it maintains the discipline i think of having a gap between this out-turn report and the quarter one report that will follow at either the next committee or the one thereafter in in in july um at a headline level um you know i'm not going to talk to um the volatile picture we've seen during the year i think i've spoken to that in f over the previous three updates um it's important to confirm that the activities that were undertaken for the whole year um fully complied with the uh except for code in place and the limits and indicators that were approved as part of the strategy that that council approved back in march 2023. we've continued over the year with an approach of of internal borrowing that has meant that gross borrowing levels have reduced slightly during the year by six or seven million pounds um consequently our investment balances have similarly reduced over the period from 25 million down to 12 million at the end of march 2024. importantly there i think what stands out in the in that top table of of data metrics in the in the covering report is that our credit rating has deteriorated over the year there's a good reason for that and if members of the committee did scroll down to the the table under 6.1 they'll note that investment balances have reduced over the year so as a consequence a greater proportion of our investments at the end of the year were with non-government bodies and as a result the the credit rating for those are slightly higher and so it isn't of concern to us it's simply as a result of that lower overall balance and greater proportion of those being with non-government backed bodies i'm sorry john to interrupt you um i don't quite understand the point so the credit rating is not of us as an institution the credit rating refers to where we invest our funds yeah absolutely so we're talking about investments so if i just talk to that table specifically we would have started the year with 38.5 million pounds of investments um 13 million of those would would have been with the highest quality credit rating with with the government and local authorities if we go to the end of the year we would have had 11.9 million pounds of total balances and three million of those would would have been with government backed institutions so as a proportion um we've gone from a quarter um with um government bodies to um um i guess less sorry less than a quarter but and and and a smaller proportion of those at the the year end so um our um the the credit rating of those investments would have deteriorated over the year and the value of of those with a lower credit rating would have reduced so it's um it's a nuance of of of the uh the credit rating system in place um but i think that the net results that i'm trying to get to is that it's not of a concern to us despite that deterioration um i think what could perhaps be beneficial is a value weighted metric and it's something that we're looking to incorporate um into the monitoring as we go through the next financial year um one thing that has impacted over the year is um our exposure to lender option borrow option loans so that's LOBO loans for short um we had a situation during the year where two of our three LOBO loans were called by the institutions and we chose to repay those at no extra cost um subsequent to the financial year the third of those has also been called and will feature as part of the quarter one update uh that was also repaid at zero cost to the authority so that that future interest rate risk has reduced for us as a consequence of that um we continue to have investments in externally managed pool funds um at the year end we did have unrealized capital losses on those of 365 000 pounds that is a considerable reduction from where we were at certain parts of the year due to the improvement in some of those markets towards the end of march 2024 we continue to keep a close eye on those and the statutory override that i've spoken to previously on those investments is due to end um at the end of march 2025 so we need to be mindful of that there's no indication at the moment that that override will be extended by walsh government but we'll keep in close contact with them and ensure that we maintain a treasury reserve cover to cover that project possible loss materializing just finally in terms of our non-treasury investments and an oversight on my part that the the chair quite keenly uh picked up on yesterday um there's there was a placeholder in the covering report uh for us to provide an expanded update on this uh we were awaiting some figures i think we were just uh um keen to get this report through as soon as possible so we didn't quite have those figures to hand um the non-treasury investments have um provided a net return to the authority of 329 000 pounds as we can see in section eight of the covering report the net return overall um is impacted by a bad debt write-off during the year of 217 000 pounds um so um excluding that that write-off we would have seen a 1.676 percent return um as we look forward to 2024-25 um we're expecting the position to improve both um at a newport leisure park investment and also at castle gate um tenancies continue to improve um and rent-free periods will begin to uh to end so we're hopeful uh of uh giving a an improved position and forecast as we come to the month one reports uh in 2024-25 um i'll leave it there i think chair and you know happy to take any further questions on uh on the content of the report so thanks john for a very helpful introduction so questions and comments for john please martin thank you john it's a comprehensive report and i agree i was scratching my head a little bit on credit readings as well but i guess it's like if somebody never borrows they've got a terrible credit score because they've never been a borrower and a repayer i guess it's that kind of world but i'll leave that for somebody else to think about that particularly on section eight where we're talking about our non-treasury investments um as well as a pure capital return on those i presume the reason we are investing on those which are newport a castle gate is not purely because we want to make money but there's some sort of social return do we calculate the social investment return on those in assets because effectively we're helping create jobs or maintaining jobs in the in the local area is that something we ever calculate because that's why we'd invest in newport leisure park and not one in london or timbuktu uh thanks thanks jay it's a good question and um i think um the scope of the the treasury reporting on this is very much uh financially focused as you as you'd expect um the reports that would previously have come into um the investment committee and will subsequently be um considered by um by scrutiny uh will include some assessment of those non-financial benefits of those investments you're quite right that there were economic development factors playing into the original investments made and it's right that we capture and report on those um you know as as those investments progress so um i think the short answer is that yes there will be uh some report on this but it's not for this report to uh to detail those thank you john i think that's helpful context just because as you said there were economic considerations in making that investment they're not purely financial based decisions are they we could have probably got a better return if we went elsewhere but we made a very clearly clear political decision i guess to invest in these things rather than something else so i guess this report doesn't tell the whole story it's kind of what i'm saying but the story is told somewhere else i presume thanks um yeah i think it's just probably just worthwhile um with principally obviously the two front and center commercial investments both in newport leisure park and castle gate um they so so the criteria that sat and that was presided over by the the investment committee at that time um they had the ability to be able to draw upon prudential borrowing to make those investments and there were specific investment criteria thresholds that needed to be met so to your point martin um that was two percent two percent return above borrowing um there was uh the ability for the investment committee to actually uh step away from that and take lesser return uh on the basis that and on the grounds that uh of it probably hit hit uh ticked a lot of the boxes in terms of the furtherance of economic development regeneration benefit and the like um it's to note that for both of those investments um they were made uh and in clearing those two percent thresholds so they still and regardless of the fact that they contribute uh to to the locality um they they were still acquired on the basis of their commercial return can i go to tony first please uh tony yeah thank you chair um my question is related to to castle gate it has improved has improved over the last year but you also say in there also say in there that the majority anchor tenant space is now occupied that has it been what percentage of the anchor space was available that is known fully nearly occupied and what do you really see as the as a way forward for to get castle gate into a positive business situation uh thanks chair um so i won't have percentages uh on the tip of my tongue but um we are hopeful that castle gate will return into um a net return uh during the 2025-26 financial year uh what we have you know despite the uh the increase in in tenancy we do have um rent rent concessions rent-free periods in place that will still impact through the 2024-25 financial year so we won't quite reach that threshold of providing a a net return um during the year um the those discussions are ongoing to um both fill the remaining uh space that's available but also some of the wider opportunities that the site um may may offer and flexibilities around usage uh on site so um you know we have to be mindful of that that that anchor tenant that um you know left during uh during the period and um it did leave a significant gap there it was one of the risks that was presided over at the time of investment so i think um you know considerable improvement since that time and um you know on the path to uh to providing um a return again on that investment and and back towards that that two percent threshold as peter has outlined but you don't really know how much space is left from the i think it's the cleaning company uh that's taken over the anchor tenant or become the anchor tenant um there must be a big big lump left because they don't take up all that the previous tenant had do they thanks chair i mean yeah i'd probably go back to the point of me to martin that you know this report is very much looking to report on the financial aspect of these non-treasury investments um in due course um scrutiny will receive an update on um you know those metrics that um you've just questioned um and you know the governance arrangements around these investments you know stipulate that those those updates should come through scrutiny now as we as we move forward so um you know won't be able to give you those uh those percentages uh as i say but um that's where those updates will go in due course so john just may i confirm that's the performance and overview scrutiny committee is that correct um i'll defer to peter on this one because um i've been dealing with quite a few committee dates uh today and i think peter will know off the tip of his tongue as to when these are due to come in for update um sorry uh so sorry we talked about the commercial investment update yeah um so uh scheduled to go into performance and overview scrutiny committee uh in september date to be confirmed uh just sent a correspondence on it at the moment just now um it's likely to be either the 18th or the 25th of september uh cabinet sorry hang on a minute it's either yeah it's either going to be prior to the 18th prior to an 18th or 25th of september cabinet um so you're probably looking at somewhere in the 16th 17th or 22nd 23rd sorry 23rd 24th of september thank you peter so so tony you should put a lot on the site in terms of that information clearly if you're unsatisfied please come back we will deal with it offline we wait to go to september the performance overview committee um what are we expecting the performance overview committee really and truly what are we expecting that committee to recommend um can we see things going forward after september uh so just to be clear the um the when the transfer of responsibility occurred and the report was taken up into council uh earlier in the year i believe it was january um performance and overview uh committee ostensibly take upon the responsibilities for performance monitoring that the investment committee had um that will happen on a six monthly cycle it's not a one-off it happens every six months but do we get a feedback as an audit committee of the way forward in sorry i'm not following we've got a report here today with catholic business park i would like to see put this way i'd like to see reports coming back to this committee about the performance of catholic business park ongoing on the back of the performance committee making whatever recommends this route they want to take i think it's important so i guess my advice if i was to making comment to the chair on that um so is to just make sure that we don't conflate terms of reference of respective committees so the performance and overview scrutiny committee's role is to monitor performance and that is why um that responsibility is being transferred from the investment committee to performance and overview scrutiny committee to the extent that that scrutiny identified any issues of weakness of governance or process or or the like then they're entitled to refer that therefore into governance and order committee to to look at we've effectively put the investment committee on ice isn't it uh that yeah that's in a abeyancy that's right absolutely okay thank you let's go to phil please yeah that is absolutely right the investment committee was was put on on ice the reports that used to go to the investment committee had all of that information in it that council recent's looking for and i'm quite certain that the reports perform as an overview will as as well and i know what the background to council recent's question is and you know i won't say what it is here because it's commercially sensitive um but uh i think that's more of a cabinet decision rather than anything else because it's it's it's the policy and under which it's let and of course castle gate has let an awful lot of its space now and of course a lot of it's been remodeled as well so it's it's not this the same animal as it was just one point that to add to to to what peter said earlier um in response to marlin's question um when we because i was on on the original investment committee um when we when we did kick that off that was to try and earn some money to supplement the amount of money that we were we were getting in in in in grants and and other income um but we did in fact do one uh well definitely one broadway partners that was definitely with a view to um to improve in the lot of the residents of mamasha and that was pretty well the sole purpose of doing that thank you phil i'm not seeing any other hands up so in conclusion may i say thank you john for paper it's really helpful do appreciate the amount of detail that this paper contains and in terms of you know what this committee um position is i think we can be assured over the arrangements in place to manage the treasury treasury strategy policy and performance so thank you once again john we'll now move on to item 15 item 15 to people's strategy um if i may hand over to as matt quickly runs down to a front possibly okay let me read your job title matt because that'll take me half a half a minute so matt gates house chief officer people performance of partnerships so once you set yourself please introduce the paper thank you very much jay and you got that right first time which is more than i normally do um so bear with me a moment committee members i'll just pop my uh my screen up and make sure i've got the report in front of me right um yes there we go apologies for for that delay um so just a reminder the the people strategy is part of the suite of enabling strategies we have as an authority alongside things like the finance strategy which is currently being developed the asset management strategy and plan and our developing digital and data strategy so together those all sit underneath the community and corporate plan and if working effectively ensure that all of the different resources of the authority are aligned and delivering the purpose set out within the community and corporate plan approved by council so specifically on the the people strategy the intention is that it creates the the framework to support and develop our our colleagues so that they're maximizing their their contribution um to those objectives so it's before you today a sort of requested previously by the committee to enable you to to seek assurance that as one of our enabling strategies our people resources are able to be effectively deployed with sufficient clarity and direction so so to just sort of talk a little bit about the strategy itself and probably it'd be remiss of me as a chief officer for for people not to to sort of start with a comment as you would all expect me to then actually we're incredibly lucky to have a sort of dedicated and hard-working colleague base in Monmasha you know we we genuinely have people working here on our sort of payroll of 4 100 that continually sort of go the extra mile uh in the service of those within our communities but we also have to recognize that we're in a in a tight employment market and that we're competing for talent and skills with many organizations out there and we need to work really hard to to make sure that we do continue to remain an employer of choice attracting people within the local authority sector but but equally beyond as well um so during the the development of this strategy we've been out and about talking to officers not everyone but a cross section of teams from those who are office based to to those who are who are front line to understand to sort of try and understand some of the realities of their working lives and get a sense of what they need to to thrive and succeed in the the workplace and some of that is included with within the the strategy uh just trying to find the uh the page number um but you'll see that i think on where are we if i just scroll down uh page seven of the the strategy itself so that sort of sets out a mix of the sorts of things which colleagues have told us but also which are very prevalent in in the academic research and sort of multiplicity of studies that have gone on in the the field of of hr so that you know that's things like autonomy the freedom to to make decisions express creativity and sort of navigate work with a with a sense of control that that sense of purpose that people have they understand what they're working towards and trying to to achieve so those are things you'll see coming up a lot in in the sort of literature and research and and that goes down to really some of the the issues that have been surfaced quite clearly by by colleagues in in front line roles such as the the tools to do the job we have a lot of colleagues out there working in quite challenging conditions if you think about it where the likes of me are sat in front of a laptop in a warm office in in december and january we have home carers out there moving around the county knocking in front doors in driving rain we have people out there repairing barriers on the roads and and filling potholes so yeah the the needs of colleagues different it's important that we make sure that they have the the tools to do the the the job um so so you'll see a sort of broad set of of things there that we need to make sure we we have in place the the strategy itself then puts in place six different objectives which you'll see on on page eight that align with with those so things like a clear purpose supported by an enabling culture where colleagues have the information they need and are empowered to make a difference to the the people we serve you you can see those i'm not going to sort of read them out and run through them verbatim but what you see down the left hand side of that diagram is that together these should put in place both all the the culture the capacity and the capability in our workforce and align all of that together it would enable people to make a contribution to the the communities we serve so those objectives are then delivered through a series of of actions which you'll see on page 10 onwards now you'll see a note at the beginning of that action plan um that is not a finished product because it will never be a finished product because the world is continuously changing you know we reference here the the future of work you know that's a really challenging area for us as we begin to grapple with both the potential and the challenges of things like generative artificial intelligence the challenge of making sure that we maximize the potential of that for colleagues and productivity well making sure that decisions that affect human beings out there in our community are taken by human beings inside our organization rather than by rather than by algorithms because we know the challenges that can come with that sort of approach which which often will will come with the the inherent biases that we've seen sort of historically exist within our within our society so so the element of the human runs strongly through through that but i'll just pick up um if i made you and just just highlight a couple of the um the actions so amongst the things we're working on at the moment and be launched fairly soon will be the the authority wide rollout of a new e-learning platform and if i think specifically about the role of this committee and your interest in this one of the things the e-learning platform make sure we do is as well as providing a platform for colleagues to access the training they need to do their their jobs now the essential skills for the jobs they're in it will provide a space for the development opportunities they will need to to really us to keep hold of them and make sure they can work towards the next and the job after that in their in their career in terms of assurance the other thing that system will do is give us a higher degree of confidence that all of that mandatory training is in place because it will be all recorded in one place linked into our our payroll system resource link so each employee's record will say if you are supposed to have done health and safety training it will show on your record if you're supposed to have done as all of us do safeguarding training it will be on your record and we'll be able to report more accurately directorate by directorate that colleagues have the training in place that they they should do one of the the other actions in there again to be launched fairly soon is the rollout of an e-recruitment system that does two things it should make the attraction of candidate and the onboarding of candidates an easier process for them making it you know increasing our likelihood that we'll be recruiting the very best people but secondly what that does is it takes away the double and triple entry of information so we're not looking at application forms and keying that into a payroll system the application form is moved by a series of sort of connectors and digital connections into the payroll system so all of the information flows so at the moment we have we call them e-forms in a lot of cases they look like e-forms but actually they still involve a lot of manual processing this is building in a more sort of seamless process of automation in in our sort of use of of that information um and just just just sort of one more example the other thing which is is highlighted in here is a new performance appraisal system for our colleagues we have a scheme in place at the moment but we've been listening to feedback from colleagues and managers and it isn't performing as well as we would like in terms of creating that sort of golden thread from the objectives of the organization through to the the individuals and the other thing that that scheme will do link back to my first point is give us far greater knowledge of the development and training needs of our colleagues so we can use that to inform a better training needs analysis and target our training and development more effectively to make sure that we have the the workforce again that can do the job they're employed to do now but also which is is fit for the for the future and then on page nine of the the strategy you can see a table which highlights if we get all of this right what it should look and feel like for the individual employees for for leaders for the organization and then you know most importantly for those in our community and that just attempts to sort of bring that all together and just by means of of conclusion you know I think again you would expect me to say this our people genuinely are our most important asset of our circuit 200 million pounds revenue budget around 100 million of that is is payroll costs no matter what I do or Richard does or Peter or Jan on any given day we are only a fraction a tiny fraction of the overall contribution delivered by 4 100 people and we need to get all of that working in the the the right direction and making sure we have the conditions in which those colleagues can thrive and succeed um so cheer if that's all right I'll sort of pause there and um and and open it open it up yep of course so so if I may thank you for the paper and the uh helpful introduction as you um said this is a very important strategy strategy which needs to be clearly and robustly implemented because you know as you as you quite rightly say people are most important resource and we can't squander the talent we clearly have with the organization but go to questions I'll start with Tony please yeah thank you chair um thank you Matthew um 3.5 a little bit confused we've increased the size of our workforce over the past 10 years but our employee budget has only gone up by one percent the increased staffing has been afforded by grants for special projects so the special projects will provide the salaries for those people who were on temporary contracts now is that correct and how does that relate to the fact that the permanent staff only you've only seen your budget of permanent staff are you created by one percent I don't quite understand I can understand what you're trying to say but I'm not sure I understand the outcome yeah thanks that's a good point and looking at that again I don't think I phrased that paragraph as clearly as I could have done in the the report so there's a couple of different things here if we look at it from the point of view of the employee pay increases in local government have gone up by less than inflation yeah and for colleagues that means they've seen a real term erosion in their their pay now that's not unique to local government that's been experienced in in many sectors but for a lot of our colleagues we have a lot of people in relatively low-paid jobs and that creates challenges for for them we've also seen increasing use of grant funding coming from UK and Welsh government that has meant that increasingly both some projects which perhaps our politicians may not chosen to prioritize locally have been prioritized because we're pursuing national policies and priorities so as our core staffing group has been constrained by you know declining sort of in real terms settlements revenue revenue sort of grant settlements we've seen almost an expansion of that part of the workforce which is paid for by grant and that comes with costs because colleagues like finance and HR are supporting more temporary contracts and turnover of people who are coming in on short-term grant funded projects but actually that core staffing hasn't hasn't increased so yes the workforce overall has grown because we've seen a lot more people come in on on grant funded funded posts when John Davis and colleagues put together the budget at the start of the year if you look at that what you see is the employee costs don't feature grants they feature as income somewhere else so that core employee payroll cost isn't going up so we've seen a lot more funded from these from these grant lines uh but of course you know the ongoing risk of all of this for employees it means we have more people on fixed term contracts which doesn't give the the stability that that they need sorry did I knock the microphone off um a more considered approach to recruitment as we have dealt with the need for financial recovery in here and one thing that highlighted to to me in my world is is actually there are a lot of grant posts now which are grant funded that I thought would have been core budget and that creates that increasing risk that as these grants fall away some of the things we've come to depend on as core activity become stretched and and challenged so um I hope that sort of goes somewhere into probably sort of elaborating a little more on my poorly worded paragraph does it mean then that we got a block of staff actively seeking projects to get grants from to keep themselves in employment not not really no most of the staff employed in those jobs wouldn't have a direct role in in applying for those for those grants we have a very small number of people that would be involved in in grant application so they wouldn't tend to be an overlap of the of the two a lot of active travel projects going on they have worse I think worse government funding and it seems to me that one sustains the other and how long is this sustainable for so I'm not sure the question Matt's able to answer but I think I think it's a fair point yes agreed it's a fair point it's about I don't think Matt able to answer that question can we move on to Sarah please thanks yeah Matt I think this is a it's a lovely strategy and it clearly captures the process that you've gone through of asking people what matters to them in their in their workplace so I think that that's that's great one couple of things that um stood out to me one there's very little mention of pay I mean I know everybody in Monmouth works for love but I know you've also identified elsewhere that competitiveness in in pay is is an issue in recruitment um and also you're saying in terms of the age structure we have an issue in that we have a an experienced workforce um does that mean that we have a lot of people at the top of their grades and people coming up for retirement you've given us a median age of workforce as a whole but I'm not sure what age people are generally retiring at and what I observe is people going part-time in that run-up does that create us issues um and that you've raised the point that we've got above average sickness but there didn't seem to be an action plan to to deal with that so from this committee which is you know concerned with the statistics and pounds and pence um there seems to be a few things perhaps lacking yeah thanks very much for the for the question and generally this is the the value of coming to this committee because it adds that additional additional lens into to that and one of the things I would stress is that the action plan will continue to evolve so yeah if I if I just sort of come back and and work through through some of those um not enough mention of pay quite possibly um as you know we're part of the sort of national collective bargaining structures so we're sort of fairly limited in terms of our own actions around the our ability to influence pay one thing we we do have that probably doesn't come out here and which probably would would benefit from a mention in the action plan because we we will keep that updated is the role of our job evaluation scheme because actually we well we can't affect national pay bands national pay structures we have a some control over how local jobs are built and the sorts of the ability really that as jobs evolve to ensure that we keep those job roles under review and as people take on different and more complex work from time to time those jobs are reevaluated to reflect the the the changing nature of that that role and that's possibly something that could be better reflective how we continue to do that through workforce planning because I think some of the analysis makes reference the fact our our workforce planning perhaps isn't as effective as it could be but there isn't an accompanying action to strengthen that so what we'll do is work with the the cabinet member Councillor Callard ensure that's more strongly reflected in the in the action plan next point then if I sort of pick up your one around age structure and retirement you're actually right and this came up very strongly actually in one of the meetings we had with with frontline colleagues and this particular group happened to be you're generally refuse cleansing highways in this particular instance it was it was a predominantly or exclusively in that room male workforce but their point wouldn't have been limited to to males in job it would equally apply to to home care those doing manual handling which is actually in those roles and it will be different for all of us but you may get to a certain point in life where you're no longer able to do the physically demanding roles but still have a huge skill set and contribution to make and one of the things we need to to work on and get better at through our approach to colleague development is making sure they have the opportunity to learn new skills and transition into different roles so we can continue to keep those individuals in the organization contributing when perhaps they they may no longer be up to for argument's sake lifting heavy things on the on the road you know filling potholes lifting bins but still have phenomenal contributions and so that's one of the the big challenges to the workforce development piece and it is linked into that that age structure finally on sickness again it's a fair point we are working on quite a few things here around our colleague well-being offer we've got a a really i would say strong suite of support offers for our colleagues through at the one end what we have a go-to group which is colleagues who make their mobile phone numbers available if someone's just feeling a bit of pressure and wants to unload to someone outside their their management structure through to a contracted counseling service where colleagues can be referred through for six weeks for them free counseling sessions so we have a real range there but what we don't always do as well as we could is promote it and make sure that everyone understands that range of benefits particularly for colleagues who are out there and don't have ready access to a laptop or the hub where the likes of us sort of sat at this end of the room would normally access our materials and that's something we are we are working on at the moment how we make that sort of material more readily available to to those colleagues and promote it because those are the things which help us reduce those absences in in the first instance and then get people back to work quicker you know the effective occupational health service and referrals that can support people and and it's things like making reasonable adjustments when people return perhaps after after surgery or after an illness to get them back in the workplace with adjustments adjustments quicker so again yeah thank you very much for the for the for the question um Councillor Burch and I think there's a few points there we'll go away and make some refinements to the um to the action plan okay thank you Matt go to Peter next and then Martin Peter uh thank you one thing I'd like to see in the uh the strategy is some some reference to our role as employers of members of the armed forces community um two years ago we were um Welsh Armed Forces employer of the of the year we are um currently holders of a gold award as armed forces um employers which is up for renewal soon so it would be useful to have some reference there I mean things like our um commitment to give a guaranteed interview to any veteran or somebody soon to leave the armed forces who reaches the minimum requirements for for a job perhaps their role in in being sure we can release reservists a recognition of the skills that members of the armed forces bring with them so we actually use those so I'd like to see you know more reference to that in the in the report if that's if that's possible thank you thanks Peter Martin I fully support Peter's comments on that I mean it's that's not I mean we've clearly done that in the past I think it just needs to be could be captured less um echoing earlier comments what staff want is about pay it's about recognition and it's about flexibility I've heard of talk about pay recognition gets mentioned in here and the flexibility stuff doesn't really and work from home is not a phrase that exists in this document except perhaps buried under the reduce our car and footprint section is that a hint that we're trying to tell everybody to stay at home if possible because I couldn't quite apart from that there's no other mention about sort of where people are actually going to be working so that would be helpful you mentioned on page 12 in the action plan gender pay gap some organizations are moving beyond that and looking at ethnic pay gap disability pay gaps those kind of things are really sort of if you want to be forward and progressive they're the kind of areas you need to look at as well and and finally I had a very smile at the bottom page 14 when you see again to take an audit of our culture because that's a hot topic right now I mean you've seen what happened in South Wales fire effectively in the organization has pretty much ceased to exist as an organization because of its cultures and whilst I don't for a second think we're in that in that space I'm not sure we can wait till March 26th to find out so I just just suggest if we if we can do something earlier that we do thank you Martin um okay I'm not seeing any of you do you want to come back any of those points or are you happy just to yeah you okay just came back sort of quickly on you know particularly that last one near the point around culture because that that's really important and what I would want to stress is that doesn't mean we're not going to do anything until that point in time and actually prompted by the one of the examples you mentioned there myself and the chief exec sat down and and we worked through all the different pieces of evidence we have in fact your internal audit did a piece of work a couple of years back on on culture and what we recognized we need to do it didn't feel to us that we were in that place but how do we know we've got lots of bits of evidence but they're sometimes in different corners and what we recognize we've got to do is put all of that together so we can be absolutely confident that this isn't happening on our watch we're confident but we don't know for absolutely you know absolutely certain we need to do more to bring all of that the now ex-chief fire officer also didn't believe he had an issue either so yeah can i can i just do one more thing i did i did forget i'm so sorry sorry matt um terrific response earlier on talking about um well-being counseling and yet uh high levels of sickness level are we sure we're not a soft touch as well i guess this is where our hr team our managers have to work hard to ensure we have all of the processes in place you know everyone that goes off on their first day back they should be having a return to work interview that return to work interview needs to be recorded actually i had to input some sickness absence for calling today you can't close that until you've confirmed the date of the return to work interview that's been undertaken because actually that the very nature you know evidence suggests that if someone were to be off for a day but when they come back they've got to sit down with their manager and talk about that it leads to more sort of accurate reporting and ensuring that people are only only off in in genuine circumstances i've not seen any evidence to suggest we're an easy touch but we do need to keep that you know that under continuous review to to make sure that remains the case and our hi business partner supporting managers to to do that okay i think we're about done um can i say once again matt thanks for the paper uh clearly based on the questions you've heard we are very much engaged in in in in this um this topic and very supportive of the work being done to implement this strategy at that pace and in a robust manner just one question from me in terms of the action plan how will that be overseen is that via chief executive and officers or will it go to for example uh one of the scrutiny committees because i'm very keen that there's some proper oversight yeah yeah thank you good good question because actually i didn't um didn't cover it so the intention is that anything which is sort of corporate business in terms of our scrutiny committee structure would be the responsibility of of performance and overview so we've got people place and and performance and overview as well as public services cheered by council watch so it would it would fit and we would make reports available to performance and overview scrutiny committee okay that that'd be very helpful if it clearly if i can be assured that'd be fantastic okay in conclusion i think we generally support for strategy and and look forward to those actions which all appear you know sensible to be implemented um as soon as practicable okay we're on the home straight let's have a look uh item 16 is a forward work plan not going to spend any time looking at it simply because the meetings in july have been rearranged and peter davis kind of taking the action to to rebalance and resequence those papers so we just move on uh the minutes as usual of very high quality i've reviewed them i'm happy with them yet again not going to go to a vote unless people shout now that they're unhappy of any any content of content good and finally item 18 date of next meeting clearly now is 10th of july at 2 p.m so once again there's been a bit of marathon session thank you for your patience thank you for your contributions from both elected members lay members and of course officers thanks one and all thank you thanks well sure you