Transcript

Transcript

Transcript

[Silence] okay good afternoon audit committee members and officers as this is the first meeting of the new municipal year we're going to start the meeting with the appointment of the chairman and so looking for any nominations for chairman please a cancel along with your hands up I can see hello yeah we've just had a nomination for election of chairman for any further nominations no okay great so that's election of the chairman Tony Brown if you'd like to take the chair yes of course yeah okay thank you very much everybody thank you thank you for that and welcome everybody to this meeting of the audit committee just just an intro we have the new external order to avatar with us you'll be picked up in the agenda so I'll let you do your introductions then but arts and item 2 is the election of the vice chairman from the chair can I cancel can I nominate councillor long for continuity from previous previous meetings and we have no apologies everybody is here we move on to the minutes of the last meeting are they factually accurate page 7 page 8 page 9 are the committee happy to agree those is a correct record yes I'm getting nods okay thank you very much I understand there are no declarations of interest none received thank you and there are no questions and deputations there will update from the external auditor I'm going to take that with items 11 and 12 we move on to item 8 which is the draft and your governor's statements and I understand mr. Wills is away yes thank you just to make it clear I've not been involved in this personally I'm just here we have the director here or any different so I'll present the statement take any questions that we can't answer now basically the committee is being asked to consider this the draft statement advise if they're satisfied with it and then being given the opportunity to make any comments or ask for any amendments the only things I'd like to point out at this time which were main changes from last year's statement the internal audit statement has changed so we've now said between moderate and limited assurance from our perspective this is primary to cover issues with SCH that this committee has been made aware of and with children's services there there is quite a significant amount of information about the children's services situation that's contained within the statement itself as well so that's really the only things I'd want to flag with you at this time taking me comments or questions just a point there was that I was a little surprised even though I understand it presented in May 2024 so therefore be excluded I do think a footnote should be included it's in the AGS because otherwise it would be less sight of by time we get around to the next one and the other one which is more a general one perhaps I know I spoke to Andy about this several months ago but I do think if you don't have a report about the ombudstrom complaint again then instead of saying look elsewhere for the details of the 46 complaints I think it was there should be something within the report about the complaints and a specific pointer to those personally I think it should be a bit more than that but it's not the biggest issue in the world but in terms of accountability I think it is thank you you happy to take those comments on board thank you very much any other questions on the AGS yeah I'm on page 17 is the so if you've got if you've got any questions through that can we go back to page 12 and what action is being taken in relation to or where would I find the action that's been taken corporate risk to MTFS delivery where is the action that he's been taken to address that issue yeah so two weeks after the council approved the current year's budget and the three-year MTFS that we're currently working to and the chief is a can I have put in place a financial sustainability board which is about five times already has an emerging list of options to address the financial position of the council and there is a session with cabinet CLT informally next week and to start to go through some of that work and some of the emerging options it's a lot more work to do and which shows a much stronger commitment to how we're addressed we're looking to try and address the financial gaps that we have as an authority moving forward essentially and that's a lot earlier than would normally be the case for the medium-term financial strategy refresh process which would normally start around the summer from an officer point of view and with members get involved sort of in the autumn period and through to then closing the budget act in February March time so we are there's nothing off the table basically we're considering a range of options which I won't go into now because it needs to go through cabinet a conversation there first but there is a detailed mechanism in place to sort of deal with the financial problem it is not going to be addressed by purely sustainable means in the time frames we've got so there's going to be a mix of shorter term options we will need to adopt there may be some one-off things we need to do again to bridge the gap before we then deal with animal sustainable footing towards the end of the MTSS or even as we roll before the MTSS forward by end of the year as well we were we're going to discuss later on is the forward work program of the committee I mean two of my suggestions for adding to this which I think we talked about when we have the planning meeting was to have in for the September and January meetings reports to the committee about progress on the sustainability of the MTSS so if that's happening I could and there's a lot of work to be done I can leave it till then I think just just picking on what mr. Burnett says the concerns about service delivery it will remain on our radar as a committee wherever through the risk management process through managing risk so I think we're we're we know what's going on and thank you for that and it will remain on our radar so so that's it so I think it's part of the the risk management practice because obviously there's been an escalation of the financial risk as a consequence of that I think you manage it through that I think what I'm not in a situation where we're going to do is start bringing financial reports about the performance because that's already done through scrutiny sort of done through cabinet and other forums so it's not appropriate for this committee to get into that but see you've got I think you've got a win there mr. Felton so I just want to duplicate things yeah and I mean it remains on the risk register you'll be here enough and members of the committee be able to question you and item 5.4 nominated officers have provided assurance that action plan improvements have been implemented or are progressing Steve what's the internal audit position view of that sorry in terms of what improvements are indeed being implemented and progressing or have you got a process have you got a process by which you're reviewing it we have a process to consider how we review it we don't check everything so so using through our audit universe and our selective audits will will cover that as part of that process because this is a fairly what I'm saying is that this is a a fairly horizontal statement and I just like to be I'd like to be reassured that it's the internal audit is taking the appropriate actions in in the governance statement the section for internal audit covers our bits and our contribution to the governance statements because that's what you've got is a broader governance statements not an internal audit statement it's the council's management response so are we contribute to that through the work that we do hence our opinion is included in that statement I also think page 42 43 is the four actions from the last government statement anywhere where there's a clear progress update against those four actions so there's something there that gives you the ability to see what progress has been made against those if that's the I'm assuming that's the action plan you're talking about mr. maness have you you have you have you have the floor at the moment for this for Steve what is the what's the state of play with regarding internal audits review of the of the actions of the adult services continuous improvement board and the children's services improvement plan where is that on your radar that'll be picked up as part of the the audit process and the audit plan for next year what we'll do as part of the audit assessment is we will look at the assurance framework see what other assurance we can gather and complement and test check with it within that framework what we normally do so again when we go when we have the private meeting with yourselves we'll talk in detail when you were planning on with it last time moving on to page 28 a set of before actions that the council has taken a set of performance indicators has been agreed and is discussed on a monthly basis that of strategic and political levels I guess and my question is when are these again this is all part of our discussion about performance management on the work audit committee work plan I assume that these will be brought to the to the to the Audit Committee at the at the meetings on council performance management updates in July and January that's when we get to the work program will pick that up then okay Tim the council will continue to monitor developments through the offlogger taking have we got any has off log been around for long enough for us to be able to identify any areas where we're underperforming against off log indicators are you happy you happy to get a written answer back on that once okay thank you Thank You mr. Felton and anything else just a minute you you you you you you you you Thank You chair so the report in front of you today the committee is the out for the treasure mana management activity for 23 24 as a committee will be aware that culminates the the full year of Treasury reporting activity for 23 24 that started back in January 23 when you received the Treasury management strategy in advance of the 23 24 year and since then you've received quarterly updates and a mid-year review audit committee members have also had Treasury management training through that year my intention is to run through this through some of the key items in Appendix A which on page 51 of your pack and then take any questions that you may have so the important information in section 1 is that this is the third of the key reports that the Audit Committee received that then go through to full council and that those are on each agenda item for the committee section 2 talks about the economic background the key thing here is that we're in a state of vulnerability and constant movement around inflation and wage growth at the moment so it is something that throughout 23 24 started off with a period of growth which we'd seen for a number of consecutive months of growth in base rate and it's been stable since August 20 23 and we're now at that point where we are anticipating that rates will come down but the key margin there is about when and where so we keep a close eye on that and we keep a constant review of what our position is on that but in terms of the 23 24 position we had a period of growth for the first few months and then a period of stability in terms of the borrowing activity so section 3 alludes to the fact that there's no 3.4 that there were no new borrowing activity through that year I think as we reported through the financial year because of the high interest rates that we're seeing we were effectively temporarily not borrowing in the market that that does mean that we've built up what is called under borrowing or internal borrowing position where we're effectively not borrowing from the market but borrowing from ourselves by using reserves and balances we have so that has increased that position and I'll do to that as we go through the report but no external borrowing was undertaken this year section for then highlights our investment position one of the key things to point out on on this section is that the investment level held may seem like it's reduced dramatically through 23 24 from where we were at the end of 23 for 89 million down to just over 5 million at the end of 24 number of factors for that so that we made a pension prepayment for three years at the start of 23 24 which was 67 million pounds that will unwind over the three years all the way through to 25 26 in addition to that we've increased our internal borrowing so rather than actually borrowing for our capital projects we've used our reserves and balances holding to offset that that at some point as rates drop we will look to unwind but we'll keep that closely monitored and in addition the council as a whole has used an element of its reserve so the reserve balances that we go out and invest is reduced in terms of our indicators and what we have so four point one two goes on to talk about our requirements so a CFR which is our overall council borrowing requirement started the year at 447 474 million it has reduced slightly so while we did have 10 million pounds worth of new borrowing requirement we do have to make annual provision to repay some of that borrowing that we've incurred in previous years but our overall borrowing requirement is 470 million pounds as an authority the table underneath shows our actual borrowing against that which shows that we're actually only borrowing 317 million so there is a there is a gap in between those our internal borrowing position which is 111 million as well as financial instruments such as leases and PFI contracts which we don't physically borrow for they have an indebtedness already built in 5.2 the key thing to note there is our internal borrowing position whereas it the original indicator was it would be 102 million we didn't go out and borrow from that 10 million pounds incurred in year so we are at 111 million pounds and that is something we were closely monitoring against the council's reserve positions and shouldn't as and when we need to and the markets allowed we will probably reduce that down slightly back to more regular levels appendix a1 to the report that shows our maturity profile for the borrowing position nothing abnormal there we haven't got any significant maturities over the next five five years which means less potential rely reliance on renewing debts and potential push on cash flow and appendix a2 covers all of the Treasury indicators that we report quarterly to members I think the important thing to note here is that we haven't breached any of our Treasury indicators our authorized limit does remain with capacity to externalize our ex internal borrowing should we need to and and and that's where we sit as of today happy to take any questions or comments from the committee mr. page two questions John I've recently read reports by the IMF or IFS on the growing government deficit in the UK the apparently to make up to 30 billion pounds worth of cuts and spending what the impact on the interest rate please and I think part of that would be a an economist sort of interpretation which is not what I'm qualified inside I can only pass on the information that we see we scrutinize independent information from our Treasury advisors through the market as well I think there's a common acceptance that there is spending cuts potentially but global economics is predicated around politics and what might happen so there's elections going on here and overseas I think the general perception is that inflation and wage growth is the thing that concerns economists most the booze a potential that market reductions or spending cuts could potentially impact on that that is more likely to stagnate market reductions rather than increased rates at the moment I think there's a perception that rates are at peak but it's sufficient to control inflation it's clearly brought down inflation as is what may happen is inflation and wage growth spikes and therefore that they prolong before we reduce all we can say at the moment is the current forecast is that we will see a rate reduction in the 20 in the current financial year potentially that's less than we thought six months ago and who knows what's around the corner I think is the general consensus I do remember in one of our meetings now maybe 18 months ago there was some concern about the wage inflation particularly the local government sector and in particular one particular group I think of HGV drivers and there was a discussion at the time has there been any indication that in actual fact wage inflation or wage increasing in the local government sector bottomed or going up or whichever way and the other one is a minor point is on 4.2 where it lists council shareholders I'm assuming that SCH and the urban growth company are actually formed companies or not what what do you mean by formed company they are individual companies absolutely yes yeah and I think I think that's the way that the companies have been set up so the council doesn't have a formal shareholder in the same way that it does the other entities that are listed there but yeah okay can I pick up the pay question and just about please and it's complicated one so unions will use the arguments around where pay inflation is as an argument for increases as that's coming down they're then talking about the historic lag of public sector pay compared to private sector pay as a as a reason for why they're then asking for more than inflation so inflation isn't necessarily a a perfect guide to what unions will petition for in terms of pay awards the employers for the current financial year have gone back with broadly for us around a three and a half to four percent pay award it's disproportionately skewed across the pay scales because there's a fixed amount at pay scales 140 something at one thousand two hundred and ninety pounds I think it is or 75 pounds that order of magnitude and then it's a percentage increase after that because obviously that amount would be a guaranteed percentage after that so that's why works out about three and a half to four percent for us overall that's ahead of where we think inflation will be as a balance across the year but as I say the unions have asked for more because they started much higher figure than that on the basis of the historic position and trying to catch up with her sorry position employees have come from respective of what's employees can afford and what that means for us as a council is we had only provisioned 2% within the MTFS so we have a budget pressure as a result of that for the minimum paid that's been offered by the employees at the moment that will come in the current financial year from our contingencies that we've got the seven and a half million but we will have to provision for that on an ongoing basis if that's where the final position is agreed effectively so there's an extra crudely up to two million I think it is extra that that equates to and that's a border of magnitude that we've got to find on top of the gaps we'd already got for twenty five twenty six going forward thank you any other questions on on on the Treasury management and reports so the recommendation on page forty seven is that the committee's asked to recommend a council approves the Treasury manager had turned report as attached in the appendix to this report all the committee happy to agree that I'm getting nods thank you very much we move on to item number ten which is a draft statements of accounts which was circulated electronically only just for our external auditor the reason you were held outside the meeting is that the finance team give us a briefing on this and allow us to ask the detailed questions we didn't quite get through it so what I look to you Julie first to set the scene and then if the members didn't get a chance to finish all their questions or there are any questions I want to ask again you're free to do so so Julie can I give that you the floor just to say you've all got a covering report on your desk in front of you because for whatever reason it didn't actually get included within the pack so in the pack you've got the actual statement of accounts but we always do a covering report so I'm just going to highlight a couple of points from the actual covering report itself so we're asking you today to review the draft statement of accounts for 23 24 that you've had separately emailed the draft accounts will be going to go governance committee next week so any comments that come through from yourselves today will be fed through to governance committee next week again your your role today is to review the draft statement of accounts we will come back to you again in September hopefully with the final statement of accounts after external audit have reviewed them and after we've made any other changes to the draft 3.2 just highlights the fact that as part of the regulations we had a deadline of the 31st of May to publish our draft accounts and ER director of resources actually signed them on the 28th of May and we were able to publish them online the following day so again we've met our statutory deadline and suspect we're one of only a handful of authorities that have because it's usually a very low percentage I don't know what it is this year but it is usually very low and we currently are running through what's called the statutory inspection period where members of the public can come in and look at our accounts and anything else related to them and ask us questions so paragraph 3.6 really just gives a couple of a number of bullet points really just highlighting anything that's changed this year as has been the case for a number of years now the narrative report puts the performance of the council in terms of the numbers into into a narrative and gives a summary of the overall financial position for the year we were taking a the out-term report to full cabinet this Thursday so that's the sort of formal report into cabinet around the revenue out-term position we just highlight the some changes around the balance sheet and highlight that the change in our short term investments and that's linked to a prepayment of pensions that we did to two years ago sorry no only a year ago April 23 new treatment this year around the pension fund so the pension fund moved to what's called an asset position with an evaluation of 90 million but the new super code of practice actually requires us to reduce that down to Neil so I'm not actually able to recognize that that asset valuation so that's a change of treatment this year obviously if the the pension fund went into a deficit position then we do need to recognize that we then just summarize what the position was on the housing revenue account and the collection fund accounts both of which have got their own statements within the statement of accounts and as the chairman pointed out we've already had a briefing session so yeah happy to take any questions on the statement for those members who didn't get the opportunity to raise anything earlier Councillor carry yourself with you sir thank you chair regarding the adjustment on the pension scheme does that have any element of prior adjustment or is it entirely a current year item generous my pensions pensions experts if she can find the fund a microphone adjustment that yeah it's just in the current year so it's just in 2024 thank you the surplus of the pension scheme will that provide a reduction in contributions over future years so there's a three year training evaluation which leads to the pension fund setting employer deductions that are applied and that will vary by employees depends on the particular liabilities for that employer their mix how long they got left for active employees within the scheme or a range of factors effectively because it's the pension fund takes a long-term view of liabilities the rate isn't generally reviewed outside of that three-year triennial so even though the surplus that the funders now moved into a surplus position that wouldn't automatically lead to a review of our current contribution rates and a potential reduction for the fact that isn't surplus we'd probably get the benefit of that the next triennial unless as a group of employers we ask the pension fund for a review which we have discussed at the West Midlands finance directors session we've had recently and we've got a session coming up with the pension fund to explore that in in theory and I know from my role on the Westminster pension for board that actually they're quite reluctant to do that just because of taking this longer term view and the fact that those liabilities will be there for multiple tens of years beyond where we are today and the contribution rates and the assumptions around income levels can fluctuate over that period just as easily as we've got the game now it can also flip back in the other direction if conditions are are such that and we see a reduction in the overall funding level so we are exploring it we may get some joy at the next triennial if we don't get it in the short term we've got at least another year and a half before we get to that point and see the benefit of that within the MTFS if if our liabilities and the funding level is still sustained a surplus yeah I think that addresses the point I was trying to make that the if there is a future reduction in contributions then that reduction would be an asset yeah well it reduces our revenue liability and it doesn't necessarily reflect on the balance sheet because the funding position reflects on the balance sheet it depends on whether reducing our rate has any impact on the assumed funding level as to whether it then in you would affect the valuation for the accounts you have against okay thank you mr. Bennett basically my comment is on the second bullet point in three point six where it talks about an extremely high level of financial risk across the MTFS basically as I mentioned what I'd like to say added added to the work plan and we can come we can come back to this is the is a review of where we are on addressing those risks perhaps in the in my suggestion is going to be for the September and January meetings but basically I'm happy with the fact that was here except for the need the desire to have a report on what progress is being made on on the MTFS for we've got the word program pick it up there okay is is that is there anything else on on the the draft statement of accounts no so the recommendation is members are asked to review the council's draft statement of accounts 23 24 and refer any comments for consideration to the governance committee meeting on the 26th 2004 I don't think we've got anything for the governance clear but I think they're sorry Councillor I'll finish and I'll come back to you but I think there are some suggestions coming through from members of the committee how they might be presented in the future and officers have captured those and you'll decide whether they're helpful or not sorry Councillor K sorry just a quick one note 34 of the accounts on page 151 of the pack or 85 of the accounts refers to the West Midlands Metropolitan authorities pension fund should that not just read the West be the West Midlands pension fund do the Westminster's authority manages is it under there or is it is it West Midlands okay Thank You councillor very helpful okay so are sorry I'm back I'm back to I'm back to the recommendation are you happy to agree that they go to the governance committee meeting with our approval can I can I just ask going forward that the stomies accounts came out electronically no I know there's a lot of pages in it but I think some people missed it so if you could just when it comes back in September you just make the effort to make sure that we've all got it somewhere to see I think couple of it didn't quite drop in members members inboxes in you know in an easy place to find so just for September if you could make the effort so just make sure yeah yeah just yeah just big bold email that will be helpful okay thank you thank you right I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna move on agenda item 11 is the audit plan and after your your can I can I let you introduce yourself and talk us through your report okay 17 years of experience has been a public sector audit and way back about 16 about 17 16 years ago I was actually working on the Solihull audit as a trainee so it's it's nice to be in this position to come back as an engagement lead on the audit so I used to do a lot of the field work and what not so just in terms of the audit plan what you'd also notice and he's not here today is that we've got a change in manager and that will be Terry Tobin he is an experienced senior manager in our team and he's worked on a number of large authorities over his career and and just to add I'm working on a number of large authorities across the region as well in terms of the audit plan it's probably very similar to audit plans that you've seen in prior yeah so I won't go into the too much detail around it what I just want to draw on is probably mentioned on page 214 of the report page 6 of our page 214 of the pack and six of our report which is the introduction of the headlines section I think your numbers are out with ours it's page 6 of yes yes so this this just gives a good summary of the audit plan in a in a simple way so we've got the signal significant risk identified our management override of controls which applies to all entities so it's something that we can't rebut it's the you know incentive of management to maybe do things to alter the financial position that is shown in the financial statements valuation of land and buildings again this is will apply to most local authorities because of the numbers involved and it's a significant estimate in the accounts which takes the views of various experts and market rates and whatnot to get to figures in the accounts so it can be easily to materially mistake because of just some errors that could actually be happened again link to that is the valuation of your investment properties as well then we've got the valuations of pension fund net liability and again it's a complex area which requires lots of experts to be involved to get the estimates and ultimately it can lead to material statement if things are incorrect and then on the presumed risk of fraudulent income and expenditure as required by practice note 10 we've rebutted those risks and that's normal across an authority in just in terms of where we think the risk profile is but it doesn't mean that we don't do any work on them we just don't put it at the higher risk levels in terms of the group audit we still have a although we're not the auditors for the companies involved we do have to get assurances over those companies and their audits that feed into our audit and where we're not getting that assurance we might then do our own procedures but we'll see if you know what we need to do on that as the time goes by and the materiality we've got two sets of materiality one is for the group audit which is eight point eight eight million and then the actual council is eight point eight million and it's just a requirement in our standards that we need to have a separate materiality for the group and the council audit and then in terms of our error boundary where we would report in our audit finding reports we're looking at a value of point four million point four four million so anything that we find will list as either trivial errors or unadjusted errors but other things will be you know in more detail if we think there's the misstatement and requires correction and we've also determined specific materiality for senior offers officer remuneration at one point five percent of the expenditure disclosed in that section and that's normal as well so the actual process there is normal and it's probably similar to any local authority audit that Grant Thornton does where we differ here is the value for money assessment and work that we do around value for money arrangements which is really honing down on the risk that we see the council has and at the moment we have highlighted two areas of significant weakness which are in respect to children services and financial sustainability which draw upon the work that we presented in our previous annual auditors report in for value for money in terms of our audit logistics we're planning to start the audit very soon over July we just signing off some NHS accounts at the moment and then we look to start the audit and hopefully with everything going in our favor be in a position by the end of September to be in a position to issue an opinion but I wouldn't guarantee that because a lot of things can happen in an audit to which could stumble and you know in that but that's our intention to basically get to a point in September where hopefully we finish the audit before I admit that that's one of the issues I wanted to pick up is is the capacity of the time scales for you because officers they said work really hard to hit the time scales of this this this council has got a good has got a good solid reputation of doing that and I think it was a bit disappointing last year so hopefully you'll take that message away and do that so and and at the risk of at the risk of stealing Councillor Kaye's thunder three hundred fifty thousand pounds how do our officers get to assess the value of money from you so in terms of the first point in time scales because we know that you're an authority that generally delivers we have put you in the first queue the front end of the queue to do the audit and we have reshaped the team as well just to make sure that we had capacity issues at the back end of last year's audit so we've reshaped the team and hopefully that doesn't happen again but you know sicknesses and things we can't yeah in terms of the audit fee again this is has been set by public sector audit appointment by a procurement exercise so it's probably not my place to comment around that I'll go around go around the table Councillor K have you got anything you wanted to ask specifically on this thank you mr. Bennet is page 68 really a sort of generic question really mr. Bennet said the introductions and headlines introduction and headlines I guess my question is to to what extent in this year's audit are you auditing risks that you identified last year to see whether they have been now addressed and my second second question is on page 81 you've mentioned the two risks that you are addressing in your put your VFM arrangements when will the VFM plan be available and secondly what it will it also include the pressures in adult services so in terms of the second question so there wouldn't be a specific VFM plan it's just that we've informed in this document these are two significant weaknesses that we've already got focus on however when we carry out our work we have a series of programs that we have to you know questions and arrangements that we have to look across so it covers the free areas financial sustainability governance and the free ease so we would go through a program and from there we might draw upon new risks that have been identified as part of the work that we go across I mean I'm going to go back to ancient history now the 1980s when I worked when when I worked for Deloitte's and we were an appointed auditor and the VFM agenda was explicitly set out in advance by the Audit Commission I know it's not done like that but I'd have thought somebody in your company's thinking about what else might be on this agenda I can appreciate the comment but what we have to do is write the audit plan at a point in time where we haven't we still have to do a lot of the work so what we've done is just identify two areas of focus that we already know about and whilst we carry on doing the work we have a series of questions we ask and when we get to the actual final report there will be more commentary about other things and there might be other significant weaknesses significant risks identified but without going through the series of work it's hard to comment on that and review and the other questions review of review of the carried risk forward risk from twenty two twenty three how do you deal with that process we look at significant findings from last year and if we warrant we were to see what managers management response to those findings are and we will look through them and make sure that a there is a response and two is the response adequate and it's all through what we see and do to testing around so the risks in terms of actual audit risk are pretty similar and they're the same as like what you would have seen last year but it's what we do in terms of the findings and that will shape audit response and actually just just to make sure that where management gave us a response to say we will do this we will check that they have done that can you live with that for the moment okay thank You Mr. Burnett. Councillor Kaye. I'm going to beat my head against the same wall as I did last year but I have a problem with the presentation of the accounts that they have an awful lot more brackets around figures than you might meet in a private sector set of accounts now I understand that actually quite a lot of this is prescribed but I understand that Grant Thornton will be doing a technical review of the accounts this year and I would just like there to be a cull of non-essential brackets because to me when you have for instance a liability described as such and with brackets around it it's kind of the accounting equivalent of a double negative but it isn't a negative but it shown as a negative and I feel that just for the general member I mean as a professional accountant I struggle to get to grips with this so I feel through the ordinary member of the public you settle on a figure and you have to ask yourself which way around is that and I just want to flag that up that I would just so wish that they the there was more plain English in the accounts thank you can't cancel the cat are you are you happy say we we had a full discussion on this last year we had a vote on it cancer K remains passionate about about about that can we ask you to take that away as feedback for your technical review yeah just say just say you're feeding on the film through Jane and it's it's it's direct feedback from a are you a retired account can we call you that are you still do your cancers never retire okay okay so so that's that's right you would you want to I mean this is all dictated to us by sit for in the FRC so if you want to take the representations to the financial reporting council and get them to do something about it and more than happy if you do that we've banged our head against that wall for a long period of time there's lots of things within how we have to report that actually we're not happy with but we have to do because it's part of our accounting and there is a difference between some of the public sector requirements and some of the private sector requirements unfortunately we have to conform by though because that's our professional expectation I appreciate it's frustrating as a private sector accountants in that respect and I know there are issues around the cash flow stuff that I know you talked about earlier on that was in a similar vein but it's just what we have to do as a sector we got used to it we do try and push back on that with sit for and the FRC where we can but it is a little bit like banging head against brick wall with them as well and I'm going to interrupt you because we we had this discussion a year ago and yeah I know so so so I think what what's happened in the year was you you've got more sympathy from the officers now about changing changing things and the feedbacks coming through oh it's time I'm trying to close these down and move on but my point is about public access which is very rarely exercised is actually when somebody is presented with your plan which I know you know how how do they understand it does anybody actually ask the public when they inspect our accountants outside the rooms like this across the country do they understand them because they're not the easiest thing to grasp I'm not an accountant so when I read the preface I read the preface and I read through very quickly to see if I can find a gap and if I don't find a gap I stop but you're I think that's a point that should be fed in also by yourselves because this is actually done for the public it's not done for internal purposes yeah all I wanted to say really on that to some extent that's why the narrative report was brought in to try and address that to a small degree because that's the opportunity to put in words the performance for the year that's my response to that and it's just it has to go to FRC has to go to other bodies to approve those changes so from this point Councillor case points their office is aware that you're aware of that and the point of the public I want to move on okay okay sorry sorry check I just asked one generic question about are we on item 12 yet okay I'll wait until we it was in answer to the public scrutiny of the accounts basically so I don't know how many requests we have in solid zero we used to get two or three in Warwickshire and so it does happen it's not just lambeth there are other councils that get it and people don't necessarily have to understand the accounts to make a representation if they find there's a particular project that's happened during the year or a particular activity they can just ask for the financial transactions related to that activity so you don't need to have an understanding of the accounts to actually ask for information relating to it and that can be delivered in a number of formats in terms of people coming in and reviewing records and sometimes we provide those online there's there's some rules around the extent to which information can be provided but essentially as long as it relates to transactions that happened in that financial year that the accounts related to somebody can come in and ask for any information relating to that they don't have to understand the accounts to do that okay so in relation to the audit plan after you're just asking this committee to accept a note the audit plan going forward okay are the committee happy to to do that so officers take away various bits of feedback we move on to agenda item 12 which is informing the audit risk assessments so I mean without going through the highline question our guys from the responses to the risks identified are there any red flags for you and then I was just gonna ask is there any comment you want to make on this on the risks of that okay I'll move I'll move to questions and mr. Bennett yeah one horizontal question and chair forgive me if I think I asked this question last year could it would it be helpful if we added to this report you've got the question the management response would it be helpful because I think it would to add on this document then to tailor our procedures and then in our audit findings report which we then present you know when we signing off that's well if we found particular issues with responses or issues that we flagged that's where we would report on we wouldn't really report on this document because this is a primarily to get to get the information for you to do your work and then report back in the I personally think that given that we are we've engaged grant thorns and to do external audit I think their views on the adequacy or otherwise of the management response would give me greater reassurance but I'll leave it there for now I think I said this last year okay any other questions on on the on the risks no but essentially that sorry just go back to the last question essentially that is what you get from the management so whatever external produce as their final report is their response to this because they are highlighting the areas that they have audited the things that they felt were a risk to them and actually fed back to you so they wouldn't need to respond to this per se it's the work will be done further down the line and it'll come out in the annual audit okay that's okay I'm gonna I'm gonna move and so again you're asking the committee to accept this report and I think the point mr. Bennett is there'll be there'll be questions raised here that you'll be bringing up in the annual report okay the committee happy to agree that that's item 12 item 13 is our forward work program grateful to the offices for organizing a pre meeting for the committee to go through this is is there is there anything on this that people feel it is missing going forward I just wanted to clarify our earlier discussion that I feel that the forward cash flow forecast should be monitored but I'm not quite sure whether it's appropriate for this committee to do that or whether it is up to the financial report in the resources committee which happens quarterly so so I think given we're bringing the Treasury report here and actually it's the organization we've decided that this committee is doing the governance on the Treasury report it makes sense to include it in the Treasury report so I'm quite comfortable for that to be included in September the budget review and in the sixth of January from my notes and we also added who we expected to see in July was adult social care under risk management and the 12th of November public health and children's education and there was the impact of AI which was due to come on the 12th of November those additions are not shown on the draft mr. sparks the conversation was around it would be useful if men I think members of the committee felt it would be useful if directors came annually to discuss risks in their area and governance in their area so at the moment we haven't agreed okay so so from what mr. pages say them what we did that's a draft to be discussed with the director okay so we'll we'll organize that outside this meeting okay so those points you've got mr. page we want them on our agenda the drafter go to the director and there'll be a discussion and I would also agree with mr. page that those should be added and I'd like to see them placed on the next draft so that the discussion matters whether we take them off rather than rather than whether we add them when is this meeting supposed when are we planning to have this meeting so we've got we've got we've got some reports we want included that they came out okay so I had I missed this with mr. wheels and with him being away so we'll do that so that update can be circulated to us and then there's an issue then for for that that to get officer sign off mr. Felton sorry I've it's fine so I'll be quite definitive the remit of this committee is not to do over food scrutiny so budget reports and things like that are not the remit of this committee quite happy to explore the risks associated with those things and that we are satisfying that we are managing the risks with those things and linking to the risk side of things the reports can reflect that I'm not proposing to bring here budget management reports and those sorts of things because that is not the remit of this committee and we will be duplicating what we are doing through the other governance parts of the authority whether you like it or not sorry but that's with your respect chair it's the remit of commit this committee to ask anything about anything not to tell not to tell office well not to tell officers what to do but to know what the issues are and what's being done I absolutely do not agree with the statement the words this isn't it is not the remit of the Audit Committee should never be used because everything I'm gonna stop this now because do that we we've we've made we've made some proposals about reassurances we want as an Audit Committee I don't think we're that far away from from agreeing to be honest I just I don't think it's it's it's that so we will there's a discussion to be had and I think if we do that and bring bring bring it back to the next meeting and if there's anything that's not within the remit of this committee then then it'll be explained why it's not there and why it's not on Councillor K sorry sir you've got your hand up thank you as I understand it the resources scrutiny board is responsible to ensure that for the budget monitoring and that they so far as other scrutiny boards involved will ensure basically coordinate the the overall scrutiny and it's for us as a audit committee to be assured that the scrutiny boards are doing their job without without getting into the politics yeah okay so we work something out in this meeting so are you so I'm just gonna I'm just gonna go through what's on the next where are we June July so our big our big kind of issue that the next meeting will be the annual audit reports and just what's real and what's going on we've got the Treasury management the corporate risk updates the management framework just be issued on that the annual governance statements the final comes again and the and the self-assessment that was done on us so that so that's our next meeting are you happy to agree that okay thank you very much you 14 is the exclusion of the public and press and the meeting is likely not to be open to the person of mature discussion the following hours because of reports containing exempt information as defined in section 12 8 of the local Act 1972 are the committee happy to agree that and anybody who just needs to be here you're welcome to to to escape