Transcript

I'm sorry, it's the first time we've had you both together and it's great pleasure. I do apologise for the omission of John's presence from the last minute. You must have thought what kind of a place have I come to where my existence and contribution is not recognised, that was a serious oversight, it won't happen again. Okay, let us ask if there are any apologies, we have certainly have one I think. We've received apologies from Councillor Patrick Coleman. Patrick Coleman, we don't have any substitute members do we? We don't have Jeremy or Len, I'm not aware that they're coming late but well we'll presumably core it still, aren't we? Yes, I hope we are. Any declarations of interest? If we look at the minutes of the last meeting, we've obviously made one significant correction. There are a number of typographical errors that I will raise with Andrew I think, subsequent to this meeting, particularly if you look on page 255, on page 7, item 255, fourth paragraph, it doesn't make a lot of sense when you see members discuss the report and specifically mentioned that limitations of the data from uniform were mentioned unless there is a capital letter, welcome Len, there is a capital letter for uniform which is the IT system that is reasonably used for that piece of work, okay, are there any other points that people want to raise about the minutes? So in that case then I think we can ask if there are any public questions, I don't believe we have any. Do we need? We do, yes, would you please raise your hands to support the minutes please, as a genuinely accurate record, thank you very much. Are there any member questions? I want to, heads being shaken there, say a bit of count from Grant Thornton, you will appreciate that a lengthy report, updated report, arrived only two days ago, I would be hugely impressed if anybody has actually read it in the meantime, we're going to assume that you haven't read it and we'll be making procedures to ensure that when you have read it, if you can register that, we're going to suggest if that's all right David, within a week of today, if you can register that you've read and you're satisfied with the outcome at that point, then we can, I think, carry on the narrative please, but it's only just arrived, it's unreasonable, the chairman has only glimpsed on a telephone actually at the content of that. I understand some of the difficulties that have arisen in terms of the agreement between management and the auditors and they have largely been over the valuation of assets, but it has affected the nature of the accounts, so I'm going to hand over to David to go into further detail about what we do next. Thank you Chair. I may contradict you in terms of that time scale, the intention is that Grant Thornton will be here for about 430 today to present the ISA 260 report to you as committee members to those charged with governance and subject to that report being received and member questions on it. The intention is for the actual representation to be signed tomorrow, so a delay of a week would mean that the Council and GTR are unable to sign off the accounts within a reasonable period of time. Generally speaking, if there's a delay of more than two or three days, GT would then have to reevaluate the accounts because then that opinion has a short shelf life and usually they recommend two or three days. So my view would be in my recommendation to members is that you use the opportunity presented by Pete Barber from Grant Thornton being in attendance for you to ask questions around the ISA 260 report, I do appreciate that you've received that delay but there has been ongoing discussion through this committee and with myself and Michelle to ensure that the accounts are reflecting a true and fair view. From my perspective, we've agreed with Grant Thornton for the adjustments that need to be made to ensure those accounts represent a true and fair view and Pete will present the audit opinion to you but I would feel that that needs to be agreed and received by the committee tonight to enable that opinion, that letter representation to be signed off tomorrow. A further delay may mean that doesn't get signed off in adequate time which would then due to the way GT are resourcing NHS audits, it might be some time before that goes. I don't want to run the risk that you wouldn't get the audit opinion signed off tomorrow but I appreciate this has been quite slowing coming through to the committee but I can give you assurance that both Michelle and myself have been having several conversations with Pete Barber and Rosie and his team to ensure that the audit adjustments have been recognised, the statement of accounts has been revised and Michelle has prepared the updated statement of accounts, we haven't brought them here because that would have been another hundred pages of information that you would have had time to read but I can give you that assurance as can the show in terms of the process that we've followed. Thank you David, I'm not going to cross odds with you, I will simply reflect what I know is the committee's view that it's a little unfair on the committee and have so little time to actually look at the response of the auditors. We're going to take it on trust that in your discussions you've been through, you and Michelle have been through very carefully what they're proposing and made appropriate adjustments and I accept what you say about the impact of a delay further than two or three days. If we'd then would like to comment at this point before we… Oh sorry, is it Chris? Well before the auditor comes it's a depressingly common place I'm afraid, that one has these last minute requirements to look at a lot of stuff and I understand that there are going to be new auditors next year, there's a rotor, I'm sorry to carry on this way but this was the world that comes to my mind. Yes thank you Chair, the Cabinet Member has preempted my question, I was going to ask if we were going to be joined by the Deputy Leader of the Council and the doors opened as if by my Chair can he walked in, if we're a little bit stuck for something to do perhaps the Cabinet Member could comment on his reflections on this, it might not be fair because I appreciate he has only just walked in. Well I think he will have the opportunity to like everybody else to make observations because you say it was a magical occurrence, well it's even more magical that Peter has arrived when in advance of the time despite the traffic hold-ups and everything else. Thank you, pleased to see you Peter, that means we can actually, should we give him a moment to settle? I think it might be an idea and then we can follow the normal agenda out of set out there. We do have some understanding of the difficulties that arose obviously. Councillor robins, can you hear me from online now everyone? Yes, you can. Yes we can, oh I can see you on the screen, hello, this is, well would you like to introduce yourself Rosie, you may need to speak up. Absolutely, hopefully everyone can hear me and there's a slight delay in responses so apologies for any delays there but I'm Rosie, the audit manager from Grant Thornton here. Unfortunately I couldn't join in person today but it sounds like Peter has now arrived so I'll let him kind of get settled and he's going to introduce the report and then I'll go through the detail but I just think I wanted to add to some of the comments there and what David has said around the audit findings report and obviously it coming very very last minute. The understand it hasn't given people a lot of if any time to look through that and it is a lengthy report. The reason we took that decision was because of one of the kind of last minute changes that was going through that involved lots of adjustments to the accounts and we wanted to be able to bring to you a full report rather than giving a verbal update when no one can really understand the adjustments that were made there so that took the council time to work through but then us as auditors time to work through and unfortunately our quality checks identified it so it did kind of come through late in the day but that is the reason for the report being late and we wanted to be able to give people a final position where we are able to say we're comfortable with everything in our reports so just to kind of touch on that very briefly but like we said we'll go through in much more detail shortly and Peter will introduce the report initially. Thank you very much. Thank you to hand over to Peter. There we go. Yeah I mean good afternoon committee thank you chair apologies for the slight delay so I'm I'm conscious from what I can gather there's been some discussion around the timing of the report obviously this is our last year as you're appointed auditors and clearly a number of you will be aware that there is concern within the sector about the timeliness of external reporting we were very keen that we brought this final report to committee this evening because that then enables us in turn to sign off our final year and I will go through the detail shortly but I am hopeful that I can sign off tomorrow which will then conclude the 22-23 audit which then gives you a clear run into commencing in a more timely manner the 23-4 audit with your with your new external auditors so and that was the reason why we were keen to get it here rather than the other option which was to delay it further and bring it to a later meeting of this committee and that informed decision was made with the deputy chief at zec not least because it is a positive message so as ros indicated under all same standards we're required to go into a lot of detail about the work we've undertaken we're required to report in a lot of detail the changes that have been made and and the issues that have been identified but ultimately I think as the audit and governance committee you are charged with governance this committee and I think you can take comfort from this report because the headline message is one which indicates I think it's put out on page 11 of the supplementary papers it is a post generally postive message it is one that indicates that based on our audit work we've not identified any material errors in the draft accounts so what it does provide you with is assurance that the council does have arrangements in place for producing complete and accurate financial information yes there have been a number of changes made and there have been a number of other issues that have been identified that was will go through in a minute that haven't been adjusted for but we are comfortable now based on the revised accounts the the accounts are materially accurate and obviously within this item on the agenda item seven we would be looking for the assigned accounts to be signed today the letter of representation the annual governance statement if I take that away today what it then enables myself and Ross to do tomorrow is conclude our final procedures and issue the opinion tomorrow and that I anticipate that opinion being a clean one what we call an unqualified opinion to say that in our view these do fairly reflect the position of the council at the 31st of March 23 the committee have already at an earlier meeting received our auditors annual report that sent out the results of our other role which is value for money so what that then means is I can issue a final version of that tomorrow as well which then enables me to give an opinion the clean one but also issue the certificate which confirms closure of the audit for 2223 so that is the main basis for getting this report to you recognized at the last minute recognizing we knew that this would provide us this evening with an opportunity to go into a bit more detail on the content of that report but I think it's really important that when Ross goes through the detail it is viewed in the context of that generally positive message I suppose the only other thing I think it's probably worth mentioning and I do mention it again on page 11 is the issue about financial capacity for the longest-standing members of this committee you'll recall when I signed off the 21-22 accounts I did indicate that below David and Michelle there was limited capacity and if I look at the role of the finance team within the public sector within local government now compared to the role they had even 10 years ago it's fundamentally different it's a lot more involved it's a lot more complex and at least a lot more skills and my reflection in this area is that the direction of travel has been positive this year I think it's been a smoother experience than the prior year we are still here in April 13 months after the report date and I think there is still more to do in that area and I think that's a recognition of officers as well that there is a continued need to support and provide further capacity but I think also this committee can take some assurance in that regard that it has improved but I do recognize and I think it's really important to put on record here is that there is an aspiration within the sector now that the council signed off in a much more timely manner the council has until the end of May to bridge their accounts this year so it's a much tighter deadline and your new auditors will be tasked with signing off by the end of September so it is a much tighter timescale and in order to achieve that you do need that capacity and that strength in depth I will stop their chair but I'll hand back to Rose briefly with your permission can go back through some of the detail if I can just comment yes I'm glad you mentioned the fact that you'd given us a value for money rating which was which was good where it's unqualified so that is very much on the on the positive front and of course we did recruit people to assist the process this year we did increase the capacity as you had suggested I think one of the main problems was the timing of the audit which coincided with the preparation of the budget and normally those things are relatively separated which means you don't have to spread your finance team across two very major areas and that was as much a problem of the capacity as you as anything else however that's enough from me if Rose is prepared to tell us a little bit about the detail and and how it arose thank you chair yeah absolutely so as Pete has mentioned we have not identified any material errors or adjustments to the financial statements and we have also not identified any adjustments that affect the reported out term position reported on the face of the comprehensive income and expenditure statement our audit is undertaken on the basis of materiality to prove that the accounts are true and fair and free from material misstatement so as detailed within this report our materiality level is set at 850 000 this enables us to focus our testing on the appropriate areas we also focus our testing on our four areas of significant risk these are details starting on page 16 of your packs so I'm going to start by talking through the work we have done on the significant risks and the outcome of those areas so the first significant risk we have on page 16 is in relation to management override of controls this relates to journals so from this work we have not identified any errors or any attempts at management override of controls from our journals testing that has been undertaken we have however raised a control recommendation and this is around the fact that there is no preventative controls in place in terms of journals authorization so what the council have done is they have put in a retrospective review so someone reviews are after the journal has been posted but there is the ability for the journal to be posted so this is something that is not it's more uncommon to happen it is very often the case that a lot of our audited bodies that we work with and at Cotswell district council this is due to system limitations therefore it is a recommendation on our part because we would see it as best practice to have that preventative control in place however we do recognize the retrospective review is happening and is working well so we wanted to draw your attention to that but for us as I've said we've identified no errors or attempts at management override of controls from our work undertaken there if you then move on to the next page this details our second significant risk which is related to the valuation of land and buildings the significant accounting estimate and asset value on the face of the balance sheet so from this work we have not identified any concerns in relation to the material accuracy of the amounts disclosed for the land and buildings valuation however we have identified one what we have reported is an unadjusted misstatement and this related to two assets where the value was not able to corroborate the useful lives that have been applied to the assets these differences are detailed on appendix D which we will come to later and you will kind of see the figures involved there but they are not material they are just above our trivial threshold so we would report them these have been adjusted for by the council as it's an estimation of what we expect the difference to be it's not an exact figure and therefore it's just saying there's a potential risk of this amount there but from the rest of our work there has been no other issues or concerns raised in this area the next of our significant risk is around the investment properties so again this is an area of estimation where a valuer is used and from this work we have identified no concerns over the material accuracy of the figure disclosed however we have raised one control recommendation here and this is due to the fact that in the investment properties we identified an investment property where there was a slightly more up-to-date rental agreement that could have been used that would have resulted in a very trivial difference in the valuation of the asset which is why it's not an unadjusted misstatement but it's just a recommendation as a best practice moving forward for what should happen then and then finally if we move on to our final significant risk on page 18 of your packs in relation to the the pension fund liability so from our work in this area we have not identified any issues or have anything to report to you in relation to the pension fund liability at all there what i now wanted to do is we we jump forward quite a lot to page 34 of your packs because this is where we start to talk through our key findings there so on page 34 it details three recommendations the first two that have got the blue colored assessment or the top two lines and we have already touched on in relation to the investment properties there and the work on journals the third is one that i want to draw your attention to and part of the reason for the delay in this report so this touches on the collection fund and how we noted a difference between what we call the nmdr3 form and the relevant supporting information so this difference was of 750 000 so below our materiality threshold but this is the matter that has resulted in changes to the accounts kind of over the last week or so where we as auditors have been gazing very closely with david michelle and relevant members of the finance team to ensure appropriate adjustments can be made here so this is raised as a control recommendation but also over on a couple of pages as an audit adjustment which i'm just going to move on to now if you look to page 36 of your packs this details the two key audit adjustments that have happened so the second one is that 750 000 adjustment that has occurred in relation to the collection fund difference we have have identified there so as pete and i have previously detailed none of the figures involved are material there they also don't have an impact upon the comprehensive income and expenditure statements net out turn position but the all of the adjustments that have gone through the accounts are detailed there as you can see in the statement of financial position there is a number of them and it does flow through to areas of the account such as the nurse and the reserves hence it being taking us time to ensure that we are comfortable michelle is comfortable and everyone's happy with those adjustments so this is now adjusted within the accounts and we are happy with the updates that have been made as a result of that as you can see there's also another small adjustment that was made in relation to business rates debtors the value is just above kind of our trivial reporting threshold but the council wanted to adjust for this item i'm next going to move on to page 37 so this details the misclassification and disclosure changes within the accounts so these are all smaller changes that relate to disclosures of items that aren't primary statements where we may have identified a transposition error small errors within our testing and as you can see there is two pages of audit adjustments and all of those have been adjusted for in line with our recommendations so there wasn't any that are particularly significant that i overly wanted to draw anyone's attention to and they are largely just amounts haven't been entered quite as they should be in line with the supporting information and that's the case for most of the items there apart from the third one where we identified a small error in our work on leases so i wasn't going to go into any more of those in any more detail because they're not overly significant the updates have been made from our findings of our work there the final thing i wanted to touch on was on page 39 of the packs that you have in front of you so this details are unadjusted misstatements so what you can see here is that there was three different unadjusted misstatements but the bottom line very clearly shows that the overall impact of these unadjusted misstatements is very much not material yes it's above the trivial threshold but it's it's very comfortably below materiality and the performance materiality thresholds that we set ourselves and largely the reasons for these not being updated is either because they're an extrapolation or an estimation and also because the value is involved on not material to the accounts and therefore we and the council have determined it's appropriate not to adjust for them there i've gone through some of the things that i think are the most relevant in a bit more detail there i appreciate i haven't gone through everything on a line-by-line basis i'm happy to take questions on any specific parts if anyone want to know any more detail on anything that i haven't been through but we have picked out what we feel is most relevant and hopefully useful to people in the committee thank you very much raz and colleague it's your opportunity to ask questions about some of the specifics and the approach of the auditors in coming to the these conclusions does anybody want to raise a question i don't know if it's a question go ahead councillor van but on page 21 assessment looks green to me rather than any other colour a bit puzzled there yes that so um the assessment part is referring to the final column where we're looking at the assessment where it says light purple whereas the assessment within the box where it's got things looking at the assumptions the discount rate the pension increase rate and the salary growth with the green circles is reflecting a different assessment and just the past there the fact that there was no issues identified within those there um so does that answer your questions slightly i think it just shows that i read it correctly yes um improvement recommendations in the three headings is to my mind no more or less than external auditors giving advice rather than anything else could you comment because you've said no significant weakness which is to my mind the material part no significant no that one two three everything okay um but you know you made recommendations which of course appreciated but i don't i don't think that that has any could come under the heading of criticism you may be right but we've got Peter here to comment yeah thank you thank you chair thank you councillor van so you're absolutely right so this this this page refers to the VFM report that we brought to a previous meeting of this committee and i think i was keen at that meeting to explain the different recommendations that can arise from the VFM work and we had the the really really serious stuff of the the statutory recommendations which are very rare than the the nuclear option but they are becoming more prevalent and there are some high-profile councils out there that have had statute recommendations predominantly round section 114 notices in the financial challenges but also quite a lot round governance and member officer behavior that's the most serious and there was none of those then you have the key recommendations which are of a concern nonetheless lower level and they are wearing one or more of the three areas that we look at we have we overall on balancing that the council's arrangements are not effective and you had no key recommendations as well so that that was the really positive message from the report but clearly we go into a lot of detail and we look at we look at arrangements other councils every council's different but there is scope to learn from each other and that's one of the things that the NAA have been keen for us to do is to draw to attention things that we're seeing elsewhere and things that we think you may need to build on and strengthen going forward so if i look at financial arrangements i think it's fair to say that 10 years ago your financial arrangements didn't need to be as effective and as strong as in-depth as they do now i remember it was many years ago it was pre-austerity very easy to set the balance budget and actually if you did overspend a bit there was plenty of reserves available now budget setting savings identification deliver those it requires far more robust arrangements in place so what we're doing here on these improvement recommendations that we we detailed in the report are indicating areas where we think it may be helpful to invest a bit more effort and resource and capacity to do this but they are not essentials and it may well be that the council decides to direct its limited resources elsewhere and i don't think that from recollection there was a huge number of improvement recommendations that we raised for the council thank you peter yep thanks very much are there any comments other comments or questions about what we've heard i think great thank you as an independent member i think all i'd like to do first off is well thank Grant Thornton for their work but but also um David and Michelle i mean congratulations on achieving an unqualified order report in a difficult environment that peach just outlined i mean to me this the way i read it is a clean bill of health with some areas of continuous improvement which you would always expect every year so that each year we can be a little bit better again so yeah congratulations thank you Chris are there any other comments well i will add my congratulations to the team and my thanks to Grant Thornton and here we have the recommendations we've noted the audience findings report we need to recommend that the 2022-23 accounts be approved this means we've we've caught up with ourselves and the necessary processes and we also need to recommend that we sign the letter of representation so could i have your agreement to recommend point two first of all would you raise your hands and finally can we ask you to recommend that we sign the two of us that we sign the letter of representation on your behalf yep thank you very much and i think that's you're an animal so with that i think we can conclude basically conclude your work uh it's been going on for a number of years now how many how many years is it Peter you've you've it's so long you've forgotten well it for for grant thorns and it's been it's been i think it's 10 years that we've been the appointment orders at cotswold and it's been myself for the last i'm thinking four but i might be wrong um but um yeah it's been it's been a healthy relationship i think that we've had between members and officers and um i i i'm disappointed that i'm not continuing with cotswold i think it's healthy to have some new orders is into the into the sector but um i suspect some my path my i pass my cross in the future at some stage and i wish the the council the best of the future thank you Peter can can the committee um uh also agreed to thank Grant Thornton for their admirable service and for for a very good final set of conclusions yep thank you I think she's probably closed herself off now having done having done the necessary let's move on now please to looking ahead uh this is something we have to do in advance of the uh next statement of accounts of the 23 24 so as if we've turned a very important page i think uh to have it upon this now these accounting policies have to be approved each time there are usually very few recommendations for amendment um and uh uh without actually indicating in the text it's quite difficult to see what the amendments would be but in the into and and that's what i would like to see in future please if you could highlight the amendments of the this kind of document particularly it would appreciate those of us who read these things um however in the introduction you've indicated that there is in fact only one significant change if you look at in your papers on page 14 3.5 on page 14 of your papers it says there's only one proposed amendment which removes reference to infrastructure assets well i i've looked through that section and i'm trying to work out where the phase infrastructure assets has been removed and it's a bit like looking for uh where's Wally um uh they've gone and i'm sure that's right could somebody please enlighten me as to what you what you actually mean by infrastructure assets i have my own idea uh that would be highways and bridges and things like that so typically assets that are owned by the the county um so i think that's just probably been in there a number of years and GT actually pointed out to us in this year's order that asked if we had any infrastructure assets i confirmed that we didn't so we decided it was probably best practice to remove it uh yeah that was a question in my mind as to whether we really did have any of those assets i am aware that there is actually a footpath on the other side of siren sester which connects up the Humpty Dumps to uh one of the roads around there which is always said to be district councils partly because probably nobody is prepared to run up to it but um i'd like to investigate this further privately to see if you actually do have any assets and i do know some verges on the beaches estate which is my ward by a division um where they uh the urban district council and the land and it was then it was developed for um social housing trees were laid they have now more or less decayed and there is certainly some kind of a a little battle going on as to whose responsibility it is um for for those verges so if i if i can pursue that independently i will because it may disprove your assertion that the county so the district council doesn't have any assets nothing material ah thank you um yes i do uh chair um we will be publishing um i think it was already on the website but we will be publishing alongside the asset management uh strategy uh which is due to come forward uh to cabinet in june june is right isn't it close it may um in in very near time uh a list of the council's assets so at that point chair you can check whether uh you the particular um places that you refer to are actually owned by the district council very good david has something to say to qualify what i've said in terms of the assets that the chair has been referring to in terms of um strips of land verges their class and the state of the council's surplus assets they are referred to in the asset management strategy and within i think it runs to a considerable number of pages in the annex where we list every single asset the council has got its location and what it is so that will be covered as part of the asset management strategy but these are generally very small parcels of land that are on the edge of other developments that have taken place um there's small grass verges in north leech and dotted around the district um but their class to surplus assets that you have a netbook value those are included as part of the balance sheet in the statement of accounts um but in terms of infrastructure assets it will be the more significant undertakings that upper tier authorities have around highways and the infrastructure around that and there are one or two district councils that do have infrastructure assets um stevenage borough council has infrastructure assets because it inherited them from the development corporation that was set up and stevenage was founded um shortly after the second world war it's something that district councils will would like to avoid having infrastructure assets the accounting for them is incredibly complex and required sit there to issue a couple of guidance notes about 18 months ago on how to deal with them and with all the delays stevenage adjusted their accounts to account for the infrastructure assets sit to change their mind and then adjust the accounts again to remove the infrastructure asset accounting treatment okay thank you for that elaboration that's that's fine are we in a position to support the accounting policies for the next statement of accounts um as given in annex a bearing in mind that they may still be adjusted at the time of the publication of the the draft statement of accounts and you'll have an opportunity to comment on those policies then could you raise your hands just to show that you agree and support thank you very much indeed good we now turn to the internal audit plan and I think this is uh lose this opportunity to introduce thank you chair this is the draft internal audit plan for 24 25 and it comes to the committee for approval the planning front of you has been drafted following consultation with members officers uh public rads and so what you have in front of you is a list of audits that we'd like to undertake during the year it's not a fixed plan it's a flexible plan so that we can audit the right areas at the right time have you take any questions or comments I've already questions about the audit plan it's very clear to me what areas you're going to be concentrating on it doesn't give a lot of detail though does it about the specific areas could you comment on that are we going to get a little bit more information later when you've pinpointed exactly what questions you're going to be asked of different areas within those what the auditors do they discuss with the client or the audit contacts we have to call them now where they where they may feel they've got some issue within the service area but we also have some ideas that we put to them but it's a discussion between the auditor and that person at the time and then that will all come out in the audit brief that we draft and is agreed which David sees a copy of and then that that's what we audit against there be an opportunity for members of the committee for example to suggest areas that might be looked at you could do chair based on the plan if there was something you thought you had a concern over then I'm happy to receive emails that way and we can build it into that piece of work well the reason is of course we were obliged to look at the risk register and help keep it updated so there may well be things that we pick up from from from the risk register that we think may need to be covered so I would alert members of the committee that there could well be suggestions that we could feed into the audit plan fine thank you chair just to say I had a conversation with Lucy around the impact of the public review would have on the audit plan I think it's worth members bearing that in mind in terms the audit plan will be fluid through the year given the timings that's likely to come forward for the transition of services from public to the council and the risk assessment there may be around the controlled environment that will need to be in place around that transfer given that's moving key members of staff and ensuring the processes and procedures are documented and carried through in a seamless manner and that may influence the delivery of the audit plan for the coming year John thank you chair an observation rather than a question I thought it was a good world balance plan that looked at a range of relevant topical areas I was pleased to see human resources covered within the plan as well as the more traditional standard areas around the core financials I was also particularly pleased to see the the emphasis in the planning and sustainability part of the organization with a range of intended reviews looking at aspects of climate which again is is very interesting hugely topical and an emerging area of risk so I thought it was good well sort of a good cover a good coverage within the plan of important new emerging and consistent areas for review thank you John so we we look forward to seeing it unfold in the future hello thank you chair and I have a question on page 61 probably related to what you just have said chair and under the key conclusions and I don't know whether you will be able to comment at this point in time but paragraph five and the page I repeat page 61 under the key conclusions paragraph five and I don't know Lucy whether you are able to drop your Helen that's the next item on the agenda we are in the wrong place but we're going to be looking at the progress report and that will be a relevant question we need to just sort of I think touch base and see if there are any further comments on the on the internal audit plan if there aren't then I think we can are we asked to approve it I guess we are and you'd like that wouldn't you please raise your hands if you think the audit internal audit plans would go ahead that's fine thank you very much okay now we give you the first opportunity Helen to raise questions about the progress report I think there's a can I can I just say I think there's a lot in these reports I think some of them are quite hard hitting and that's that's to be applauded I think there'll be a lot of discussion about some of these go ahead please yeah I was thank you chair I was referring to page 61 under the key conclusions paragraph five and I don't know whether lace Lucy is able to elaborate on what has been done we need to wait for further details through you chair if I'm permitted I'd like to bring Claire lock into this report because she's the officer that is looking after the report for us Claire please go ahead if you can thank you yes so the key area of concern around property services was the lack of asset management strategy that the council had in place I'm delighted to say that an asset management strategy has been produced and is going forward to firstly overview and scrutiny committee and then onwards directly to cabinet in May so subject to the adoption of that strategy you will then have satisfied that that risk and have that document in place that is the first step in a process of making sure that we are managing our assets as effectively as we can that strategy is a framework and aims to sort of give us the overarching view of all the assets we hold which are quite wide ranging in terms of buildings like this we need for service provision commercial investment assets we have and some of the things you talked about yourself chair just now in terms of virtues and odd bits of land that we may have accumulated historically so it gives us that solid position for moving forward and making coordinated decisions on those assets we will also have asset plans developed for some of those key assets which will give us more granular detail about what we need to do with individual properties and pieces of land and that may result in any number of decisions around further investment in those buildings or possibly disposal for example so that will come next and we're already working on that as well so I think that's the biggest thing to say is that is well developed now and hopefully should be adopted shortly the remainder of the work around the property team a lot of it related to risk assessments and compliance and really a lack of visibility of where we were with those the information was held on individual property records but we've actually had someone uploading all of that information onto the uniform system that the council already held so that we've got a much better management system and we're able to gain easier assurance that things like compliance checks so that would be you know have electrical inspection tests been done have gas inspection tests be done legionnaires that sort of thing have those checks been done on all the buildings we're responsible for what were the outcome of those checks were there any issues raised and what has been done about those issues if there are any so that's around having a much more transparent system we'll be able to run reports to say yes we're fully up to date there's no issues and that that work is is well developed as well so going forward any new property matters will automatically be uploaded onto that that property system thank you for that those last responsibilities in terms of oversight regular oversight and management are precisely what landlords do on a regular basis and these are landlord responsibilities are they not yes yes they are chairs so we we act as landlord not only buildings that we sort of occupy ourselves but also obviously we are letting buildings now it does vary what our responsibilities are because a lot of the buildings that we let are let on full repairing and ensuring tendencies which means the tenants are responsible for all of those things but we do have some tenants where we have some some degree of shared responsibility for buildings an example of that would be our leisure buildings which obviously are managed by our leisure uh leisure contractor freedom leisure but we we have some dialogue with them because we need to make sure that they're they're taking their responsibilities seriously and we still have some responsibilities for those buildings thank you very much i wonder i might throw this question at me shall whether the absence of an asset management strategy contributed to some of the ongoing discussions with the auditors about the accounts in terms of valuations and things i don't know whether that was the case whether it would have helped if you'd had an ams in place no i don't think so i think their focus was on making sure that the value were so it's an external value were in this case had the access to full information about all of the assets such as latest sort of rental information lease rentals and floor areas and things like that so i'm not sure that the asset management plan would have helped with that specific point um well the first of the reports has already been alluded to and that's on these eight services um and then we have a property services report as well um i i wondered if any of my colleagues have thought why do we have two separate functions and departments one called property services and the other called estate services um uh when in these straightening times you might have thought they had been combined into one um let's let's hear they work very much alongside each other those two teams um and you know there is a degree of overlap in simple form the estates team act as landlord so they are dealing with the legal element of our responsibilities so they they deal with the leases they deal with rent reviews um and making sure that we have the right contractual relationship i guess in place with our tenants property services um deal with the bricks and mortar so they for example have managed the renovations and changes that are ongoing in this building um and they will supervise if work is being done by somebody else they would need to give their consent to say yes you can dig that bit of our car park up to run cabling across that they would satisfy themselves a specification for that was was suitable so their skill sets are quite different but it is quite often too hard of the same picture thank you john thank you chair um if we're sort of plunging into the detail of uh these areas that have been reviewed um i was interested on the estate services um paper that it said the audit was originally planned to be an assurance piece of work blah blah blah um however no up to date information could be provided for the audit um and that concerned me slightly so again i'd like to know just a little bit more about that that's possible okay thank you thank you that that was principally a capacity issue at the time it takes quite a lot of time for the officers to be able to pull all the information together um to support the audit process so um we see that we prioritize the property work because at the time we felt that that was where the greatest level of risk was so the focus on officer time was pulling together the information that informed the property audit but the estate's work was was done at a far higher level as there wasn't the capacity of that time there's nothing to stop us going on to do that estate's work at a later time the issue is it involves a lot of the same people so to do both at the same time would impact on their ability to to deliver their sort of day-to-day roles thank you um could i ask if there is any likelihood that following public a transition um the the size of these teams might reduce i mean allowing for the fact that might be other arrangements with other accounts which are independent of of public and now um is that is that a likelihood i think it's too early to say chair at this point in time obviously there's a lot of work going on it around the review and i think that's the sort of discussion that will come at a later date okay david just to reassure members in terms of the process that's being followed with public review um the property and states team is in phase two we've been concentrating on phase one of the public review to date but it's fair to say that clairs service areas are a shared resource across the three partner councils and this council will need to consider the service that it wants provided from a property in the state as a team and whether that's a remains to be a shared service or whether that's something the council would like as a sovereign service clearly there will be cost implications in that in terms of the size of the team that would be needed if it was sovereign but it's worth bearing in mind some of the recommendations made in that in turn lordy report and how that may reflect on uh members' views as to how that service is designed and results but clearly um a shared service has some benefits has some drawbacks as does a sovereign service but it comes down to a simple mathematical equation in terms of the council's got a limited amount of resources that it needs to use to provide the services that have been provided either under publica um as a shared service or not um and it's clear from the MTFS that was set out that council approved in february of this year um that at the moment we are looking to ensure that all services whether they transition from publica to the council to remain in publica stay within that financial cost envelope but clearly if there are other concerns that members have around service quality honest improvements we'll have to consider that as part of the budget setting process for the next financial year thank you david um can i just ask one final question from me anyway at the bottom of page 53 there is other relevant information on property services there's some fairly serious concerns expressed here um if uh people have noticed with the council's property compliance and h&s obligations including but not limited to lee janela as bessus and gas safety management were identified do you want to comment on that i mean you've got you've got a uh an a an asset management plan now in place but of course there hasn't really been time to test it and see whether it's really being productive could you give us some assurances that these kinds of emissions yes of course and the asset management strategy won't deal with those issues that is as i mentioned just now the the compliance matters legionnaires and the broader sort of compliance matters um will will be dealt with by the work that we're doing in terms of using the uniform system and making sure that we have that clearer transparency about um what is needed when it's done and how we react to any issues that are thrown up so um they are quite separate things and the asset management strategy and that compliance and risk assessment work so as i say that those checks are done now though there are risk assessments in place there are compliance checks completed but at the moment um or previously i should say because we're part of the way through this transition to you at to uniform if you wanted to um understand whether we've done all our gas safety checks across all the buildings we're responsible for you'd have to go to into each individual property record to check which frankly was was not particularly user friendly um so if i said to the team i want to see where we are with that gas compliance they'd have to go through that laborious task going forward i will be able to click a button on the system and it will run a report for me and it will show with with complete transparency there's actually where we are with those gas safety checks so that is the work that's being done there and as i say we're quite well advanced with that we're ready Chris please yeah if i may use a quick follow up on that we i'm hearing the word compliance but for me what jumps out exactly as you identified chair it's always a concern when you see the word serious concern and health and safety in the same sentence so i guess what i'm looking for is some assurance that any short-term actions have been taken to assure people safety yes absolutely i mean the the first thing we did when this was raised was um as a sort of temporary sticking plaster was put together a spreadsheet that that covered everything so we could see if there was any any gaps or concerns and then react to those that was very much a temporary solution um but as i say we're now building in that system so yes absolutely perfect thank you for the assurance right thank you very much for that um the next review was on laborious and benefits does anybody wish to raise any questions about that it's mostly a positive account but there are some comments towards the end of the report on page 56 about customer service response to people the way they're handled um and i'm sure that's been taken note of by the appropriate departments yes have they responded positively to some of these suggestions yes they have chair and they've also got um their own sort of project in place to make improvements to the service they're providing and that's what we followed up with when we undertook this piece of work thank you chris thank you chair and i'm looking i'm afraid i'm looking at the pdf so i may i may not be looking at the same pages everybody else on a paper copy um hidden away at the end of the revenue benefits conclusion it talks about culture quite quite often um which i always think is it is a bit of a euphemism um reports of bullying fear uncertainty that this was highlighted in a previous review um i wonder if if perhaps that could be unpacked a little bit um are we saying that it's members of staff who are who are publicer staff or or or otherwise that are being bullied or is it service users i think i think it's staff very good question yes this came from staff during the interviews as part of our audit process unfortunately i didn't do the audit and i haven't got the full report in front of me but if you give me a few minutes i'll have a look or i can pop an email to the group tomorrow yeah it is a matter of concern because it was only about a year ago that we did have a serious case that was apparently the result of bullying which led to somebody leaving the council with a substantial compensation um you will remember it won't you uh david so it's a it's a it's a it's a worrying concern if i may share in terms of the report that counsellor twales has referred to it's the investors in people 2021 survey results for publicer employees i think that has been reviewed as part of the lga peer challenge review in october 2022 which this council and publicer responded to in terms of ensuring that wasn't a culture that existed going forward i think what you've got within this report is reference to that survey result but clearly if this raises concerns that there is still a culture of bullying then that's something that needs to be taken seriously in address my view in terms of what i understand the position to be following the lga peer review is there was significant work undertaken both by publicer management teams and the council's retained officers and senior leadership team to ensure that culture no longer existed but i will be mindful of the response that blue sea and her team provide to that question counsellor twales to ensure you get the up-to-date information but certainly my understanding i've enjoyed in october 2022 shortly after the lga peer review was delivered that was a significant area that was covered off in the action plan that went through cabinet and council early in 2023 yes thank you for that david so so i do understand that that yes it's the investors in people report that talked about bullying um but but when i saw it about when i referred to euphemisms so our professional assessment of the cultural landscape that exists which is difficult to evidence is not a favorable one that that's current that's present i was posted the lga peer review um it you frankly tell us with what some staff say to me just just in my my dealings with them uh with with officers um and i suppose um i imagine and this might be beyond the committee's responsibilities that the shift away from publicer may simply improve this that bringing some of these services back in house perhaps we can't comment on that but i suspect that i know exactly why this has happened and the references to to um siloed working historic references to that you know some of these issues perhaps we can deal better with as a council because we're going to be the um employer again to a very interesting point um thank you chair i was just going to say i think because obviously there's some important issues being raised here going back to something which happened in 2021 we're now in 2024 but clearly sufficient enough for your order to Lucy to feel that it needed to be captured in this report so i think your suggestion of circulating an out-to-order committee members after the committee with when you've been able to assess the facts i think that would be a helpful um a helpful direction to go in and so with your endorsement chair of course i certainly endorse that there may be lots of positive things like stability of staff like responses from the employee surveys and so on uh to deflect some of these potential criticisms about current behavior and culture but uh we'll look forward to a little bit more detail thanks for Lucy thank you. Would you explain Lucy what what waivers are and why they're designed to it was included in the plan by the request of one of the partner cfo's and a waiver is i don't quite know how to put this it's an approval process without having to go through the procurement framework yes okay sounds slightly dodgy to be honest and when you look at when you look at the the the number of waivers in total value uh one of which was for getting on for five hundred thousand pounds then you're thinking hmm why was it necessary to act so quickly that you couldn't get i mean it reminds me i'm afraid uh i try to avoid being political of government ppe covid contracts not going through the proper processes but uh i'm sure you'll convince me it isn't like that David if i may chair um the council's constitution includes the contract procedurals section six of those procedurals sets out the conditions of waiver could be applied for and it sets out the the evidence that's required to support that waiver there are some instances where procurement through the route that's set out in the council's contract procedurals may not result in the best outcome and that waiver is applied for by the contracting manager and is signed off by the council's chief financial officer and the head of legal services so typically that will be around specialist consultants solicitors barristers agents artist or professional advisor that are required may be subject to a waiver um waivers are sometimes required because the nature of the work is very specialist and there's a limited market for which procurement activities are trying to take in so in terms of the audit the audit was to ensure that the use of the waivers uh was appropriate and in line with the council's contract procedure rules and that there was good evidence supplied um by the contracting manager for the application for those waivers and that clearly is to ensure that there's a robust control environment in place to ensure that procurement isn't circumvented um by officers um largely because procurement can be seen as a bit of a delay in being able to achieve service delivery outcomes um but the procurement and contract procedurals are in place to ensure that as a public body we can demonstrate value for money best value in our spending on local and national suppliers for the services that we deliver thank you david the only other report which we haven't looked in detail is risk management framework on process um i think there are there is quite a lot of work in progress here isn't there to develop a proper framework for risk management and assessment um and it will be a a clear responsibility of this particular committee uh to uh look at the development of the risk register and to comment on it um are we going to be seeing it next time the next time next meeting next meeting good that's fine any any questions to Lucy about that in that case um i think we conclude that particular item thank you so much Lucy um and uh uh we've now got the uh CFEU report so um are you going to be taking this you are okay good please introduce yourself because i think perhaps some of our independent members may not uh have encountered you before encountered being a good word it's lovely to have an encounter with me not um i'm emma calf got the head of service with a counter fraud enforcement unit um it's a shared service across six councils and publicer as a as a client and cotford is the host authority um because you directly employ us although we're seconded to the other councils but i provide an audit committee report to each of the individual council so this report is entirely about the work that we do for cotford district council um i only turn up to audit committees twice rather than the four times um but that's just because we're delivering to so many councils and i already write lots of reports um but this is your usual um update from from me regarding the activity of the previous year um and your update regarding ripper and IPA which is the surveillance activity that we've been undertaking um in terms of one point four just to note that the work plans for this year do focus on um a bit of a toolkit for staff because the councils are now delivering so many different grant schemes um and we want to make sure that everybody is thinking about verification and assurance checks etc. before we send money out we want to make sure we're giving it's the right people for the right purpose and doing checks and clearly my team can't keep up with the number of different schemes so we just want to put together something that will help the staff do that in the first instance um in addition there'll be a bit of work around um polygamous working so that's not people having a second job um that they've declared and they legitimately have that's about people undertaking multiple full-time contracts that they haven't disclosed to their actual employers so sitting at home moving the mouse on a laptop and doing that for multiple organizations at the same time um in terms of echoing what um David said earlier we are mindful of the public review so making sure that um the plan will move and will accommodate any changes and help out with any um risks or um you know support where where staff are moving around so that's just something I've got to be mindful of um in terms of 3.2 we have been um granted funding from the OPCC of 5,000 pounds to build the website um for the math group on behalf of the Cloglossa group so that's a really positive project going forward for all the residents visitors anybody that wants to look at it in terms of fraud risk um at 3.6 your assurance that we are pretty up to date for Cotswold in terms of our NFI match check so that's all your anomalies regarding single person discount um payroll matches council tax reduction scheme matches etc they're all checked we review everybody each partners housing waiting list emergency goal and silver band to ensure that the right people are on the housing lists um and because we do that for the the county then obviously there's no preference for people to try and apply at one council than the other because the same applies um so the figures are there for the the work we've done um we have we're still pending the results but it should be pretty positive in terms of the number that will be removed and that won't necessarily be fraud purposes that will be error so people have been housed they haven't declared their change of circumstances etc um also at 3.9 we've outlined the support work delivery for prosecution work with your enforcement teams in the council so some positive results that came out of those and um the activity where we look after the council tax reduction scheme so your old council tax benefit um working sometimes with the department work and pensions um your update from 3.11 is about as i said ripper and IPA um the important point was that we were inspected and everything was perfectly fine they looked at the policies so they've undertaken a review for us essentially the policies are on the website so you can find them if you wanted some thrilling reading it's heavy going um and we won't be inspected again for another three years um i have got a summary document regarding surveillance activity non-Ripper activity which is what the council gets up to to be honest um which i'll send to members shortly when we send it out to staff just as a bit of a go-to guide really because i know you have residents that ask about particularly fly tipping and can we walk put cameras up etc so i'll make sure that's sent around so you know our obligations um happy to take any questions thank you very much any questions or comments obviously if you've shut them up i'm going to get that pretty comprehensive i think um if i could just look at your work plan so that we know what's coming up in terms of your themes it's rather like uh i don't know that's the sorry that's the that's the council work now it's your work plan no perhaps it'd be helpful if it is it is i can i can see it's it's definitely numbered here on in paper yeah it's the it's essentially 105 on on the papers but differently on on the rest of it and i mean i've asked the rest uh the work plan for this next year well you might be able to comment on these bribery and corruption uh you've got the two reports for us of course and then we're on on we're looking at proceeds of crime and anti-money laundering policy yeah do you want to how do you actually construct this work plan so it's a bit of a change from next year because this is your update on the delivery that we've had for 23 24 so from 24 25 we've made it more of a service delivery plan and an aid in memoir so if i were to win the lottery somebody could look at it and say they have responsibility for all these policies and this is when it next needs to go for review or next needs to go to a particular committee and clearly we do that for all six councils there's also areas on there about fraud risk and governance now specifically so we can talk about our fraud risk work stream and our fraud risk registers that we're developing with all the different service areas so it may be that you won't actually get a work plan like this anymore because what i'll do is do specific updates within the body of the report on areas of work that we've completed some of our projects etc but ultimately it's led by feedback from the staff if we undertake a disciplinary for example and and find internal control issues we would work with with internal audit to say well do we both need to do some some work around that in the next year and emerging fraud risks grants being a really good example so we didn't used to do very many of them we started to do more and more and more of them across lots of different service areas so i've got to recognize that that's a risk and build it into the plan um agile working has now led to much more of a risk regarding staff not being in the office and the polygamous working being a particular thing that's not just us that's that's generally going on so again that goes on the work plan um but it's all fluid because it moves because we have emergencies that pop up and we're suddenly administering flood grants for example that we hadn't or we hadn't thought we would be um so yeah it's it's what whatever we think is an emerging risk what's ongoing etc thank you so whenever you hear of a new grant you immediately pounce because you know there is an element of risk about it john thank you chair um on new to um the audit committee here so i may not be aware of some sort of background or context do you have a set of KPIs or metrics that you're working to you we have standards that we have to work to but we're so heavily legislated you can't really change how you investigate a crime it's legislative you can't change how you interview people under caution is legislative and how you prosecute people has to be in a particular fashion so a lot of what we do is is doesn't need a kpi because it's done in that way i don't have figures for how many cases we have to do i don't particularly encourage that in the team as such but we've got standards that we need to adhere to okay i was thinking more sort of like the timeliness of investigational responses um lotion say things made things like that that sometimes do so again i'm not going to put pressure on my team to investigate only those that would bring high value because i believe each case should be taken on its own merits um and timeliness should be something they should be doing anyway because it's really stressful for staff to be investigated members of the public to be invested anybody so we should never be hanging about um but yeah in terms of delivery you will get updates regarding revenue generation loss avoidance figures in in the report for you so you'll be able to see what sort of things we're generating can see something i was just wondering how you gauge whether you've had a successful year an average year or a terrible year hospitality say thank you for prosecuting us and it's not a team of people that get thank you notes as you can imagine um my i suppose i gauge it on we aren't complained about it's a very contentious area of work so if we're working quietly in the background and not creating issues then that's probably a a good thing thank you thank you for that um could you tell us a little about your relations with internal audit because there must be various points where you cross over yeah we go to lunch um i have quarterly meetings with internal audit not just at cotwell but at all six councils and that ensures that the plans are aligned and like i say if there's any risks or internal control failings if it was urgent we our management reports that we write would immediately go to Lucy so that she could do an emergency audit if necessary um to sort out an issue um but yes it's very much a fluid relationship changes you know we just keep it in ensure we're working together in the right way David thank you chair just in in terms of some of the KEPIs around the counter fraud enforcement unit clearly there's a cost to the council for having the counter fraud enforcement unit um so we have a a net budget of around about 122 000 which represents our share of the wider cost given with a part of a shared service um this report does set out some of the outcomes that the counter fraud enforcement unit would be able to achieve in terms of loss prevention and money recovered i think it's fair to say that we would all miss Emma and her team if they weren't around that there are different reasons i think the value we get is knowing that if there is fraud or uh that that type of corruption that is um suggested that we have a service that can react in a very positive and professional way to that i think the way i look at it as the council's chief financial officer is that resource is available and reacts in a very positive way and also enhances the control environment that Lucy and her team will then look at when assessing the overall internal audit opinion so i see those two services as complementary but certainly the value i see the counter fraud and enforcement unit provide is that knowledge that when there's um something that needs to be investigated it's done in a very timely and professional way and that in itself um my judgment whilst i can't evidence if the KPI's is worth 122 000 that this council has put in but clearly priorities may change over the coming years and that may not be seen as the best use of limited public funds thank you if that's all on that particular item thank you very much indeed Emma um uh then we have only well uh we we've considered the work plan and the report so i think we can move on to our own committee work plan if you'd like to look at that on page 109 really starting on page 110 so we've got an idea of what to follow you will notice that we were to have had two items on climate change and risk management policy uh but those have been deferred um and that means uh that um they they will now be added to um the 23rd of July meeting so that that could uh indeed be quite a heavy meeting i think we've been in time terms we've been relatively well likely let off this evening but just bear in mind that that it will will be a busy meeting in junei um in my case i will have had my holiday but in your cases you may be about to go on holiday so um you can lift your hearts up afterwards um it's for anything that needs to be added to that that you've you're concerned about or feel that we've neglected because we could add to that particular work plan if we choose um you very often have some but for once chair i don't my items are on there thank you you [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO]