This meeting was scheduled to receive reports from Westminster City Council’s internal and external auditors and other officers from the Council. Reports included the Council's financial performance for the previous financial year, the work of internal audit and counter-fraud as well as details on performance, treasury management and corporate governance.

Please note that this article only reflects what was scheduled to be discussed at the meeting. It does not describe what was actually said, or any decisions that were made.

Housing Benefit Subsidy

The Committee was scheduled to review the External Audit Certification of Claims and Returns.

The City Council claims for Housing Benefit Subsidy from central government, which it uses to provide financial assistance to those who are eligible for Housing Benefit and are struggling to pay their rent. The report sets out that in 2022/23 the Council claimed £171 million of Housing Benefit Subsidy.

The City Council is responsible for compiling grant claims and returns in accordance with the requirements and timescales set by central government.

The Council's external auditors, Grant Thornton, annually review the Housing Benefit Subsidy Claim through a grant certification process. This year's audit identified only minor issues which did not affect the amount the council claimed.

Performance of Council services

The Committee was scheduled to receive the Year-end Performance Report 2023/24.

The report details the Council's performance for the 2023/24 financial year and includes a breakdown of how services are performing against Key Performance Indicators. The report also includes a summary of the 2023 annual City Survey. The City Survey is Westminster's main method for understanding the public's perception of Council services and helps them deliver the Fairer Westminster strategy.

The report highlighted a number of achievements for the year:

• The CQC visited the Council's Adult Social Care Service between the 17th and 19th of June to review how adult social care is being delivered in Westminster.
• The Public Health team launched a Children and Young People’s Health and Wellbeing Survey.
• A new online Family Information Hub has been launched to help families navigate Council services.
• A Shop Front Improvement Scheme for Harrow Road has been launched.
• The Council opened three new Housing Service Centres on Bruckner Street, Charlwood Street and at the Bayswater Children's Centre. The Council also intends to open another service centre on Broadwick Street in Soho later in the year.
• The Council's Parking team are implementing a City-wide Emission Based Charging scheme.
• A new round of Greening Westminster applications opened in February 2024. Greening Westminster is a grant programme that encourages applications for projects that will improve green spaces in Westminster. Previous successful projects include: The Lisson Green Estate Community Allotments, St John's Church Yard in Kensal Green and the Onion Garden in Victoria.

The report also highlighted a number of challenges the council faced over the previous year, including:

• The increasing demand and cost of Temporary Accommodation (TA), which at year end is reporting a net overspend of £25.4 million. The number of households in TA has risen by 29% since April 2022.
• The closure of the Gordon Hospital. In March 2020, Central and North West London NHS Trust closed the Gordon Hospital, the only in-patient psychiatric facility in Westminster, as a temporary measure in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Hospital has not reopened and the Council are working with the North West London Integrated Care Board (ICB) to review options for the future of acute mental health provision for Westminster residents.
• Potential reductions in NHS staffing at the ICB, which could affect the council's ability to provide social care services for its residents.
• Delays in Family Courts which impacts on the Council's ability to look after Children at risk.
• The future of the Household Support Fund (HSF). Westminster has used money from the HSF to provide support to residents during the cost-of-living crisis, but the future of this fund under the next government is uncertain.
• The handover of new homes from developers to the council, which will require additional capacity to manage.
• Construction pricing and construction market challenges are making it difficult to deliver development programmes and are impacting scheme viability.
• The Levelling Up Housing and Communities Committee (LUHC) has amended the Planning Guarantee reducing the amount of time the Council has to determine planning applications from 26 weeks to 16 weeks. The council is taking action to manage the impact of this change, including enhancing its monitoring frameworks and the use of extension of time agreements.
• The Building Safety Act 2022, which requires the council to make significant changes to ensure its buildings are safe. All 145 of Westminster's High Rise Residential Buildings were registered with the Building Safety Regulator by October 2023. The council has also launched a new webpage for residents and hosted a meeting with its Residents Panel to provide oversight of engagement on this.
• The requirement for all planning applications to deliver at least 10% Biodiversity Net Gain, which is creating additional workload for the planning team.
• The Council's performance against the Regulator for Social Housing's Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs). The Council scored particularly low on the measures for:
  • Tenant satisfaction with the landlord's approach to handling complaints
  • Tenant satisfaction with the time taken to complete the most recent repair.

Finances

The Committee was scheduled to receive the Revenue and Capital Outturn 2023/24.

The General Fund (GF) revenue outturn position is a net overspend of £0.69m. This is against an approved budget of £193.6m - a net overspend of 0.4%. The report says that this is an improvement compared to the Quarter 3 forecast position of a net £2.67m overspend. The key variations are:

• The Housing and Commercial Partnerships directorate reported a £25.804m overspend. This is a result of a significant increase in demand for temporary accommodation and the rising cost of accommodation.
• Children's Services reported a £3.636m overspend. The report says that the overspend is due to:
  • A shortfall in joint funding from the NHS
  • An increase in costs for Looked After Children placements
  • An increase in costs for supporting those with no recourse to public funds.
• The Council's Finance and Resources directorate showed a positive variance because of increased investment income from treasury investments.

The Capital Programme outturn reported a gross expenditure variance of £81.7m against a revised budget of £253.5m. The largest variance reported is for Temporary Accommodation Acquisitions at £20.22m, The report says that the variance is mainly because properties were rejected at the legal stage or have not progressed to completion.

Draft Statement of Accounts 2023/24

The Committee was scheduled to approve the Draft Statement of Accounts.

The draft Statement of Accounts for 2023/24 reports a net asset position of £3.322bn.

External Audit

The Committee was scheduled to approve the External Audit Plan for 2023/24 and the Draft Pension Fund Audit Plan for 2023/24.

The audit plans set out how Grant Thornton will complete the audit of Westminster City Council's accounts.

Treasury Management

The Committee was scheduled to note the Treasury Management Strategy Outturn 2023/24.

The Council uses treasury management to ensure that it has sufficient funds to meet its capital and cash flow requirements, and that it can make an optimal return on surplus cash.

In 2023/24 the council continued to follow a strategy of under-borrowing for its capital programme, meaning that it was financing some capital spending using internal resources.

Counter Fraud

The Committee was scheduled to note the Counter Fraud 2023/24 – Annual Report.

The report included a summary of the work undertaken by the Corporate Anti-Fraud Service, which identified 169 positive outcomes with a notational value of £1,021,933, and a copy of the new Anti-Fraud & Corruption Strategy 2024/27.

The report highlighted a number of noteworthy investigations that had taken place during the year, including:

• A tenant that was found to be subletting his Westminster property while living in Enfield. The tenant was found guilty of three fraud offences and sentenced to a 2 year suspended sentence and 150 hours of community work.
• A son who falsely applied to succeed his deceased father's tenancy and forged a doctor's letter to support his application. The son's application was rejected, and he was ordered to return the property to the council.
• An employee that was found to have fraudulently applied for food vouchers which they sent to themselves and known associates. The employee resigned from their position.

Annual Report on Internal Audit

The Committee was scheduled to note the Annual Report on Internal Audit and Internal Control - 2023/24.

The report provides the Head of Internal Audit's opinion on the adequacy and effectiveness of the Council's framework of governance, risk management and control, and sets out the audit opinion of the Director for Audit, Fraud, Risk and Insurance. The report says that the audit opinion is 'reasonable assurance' that systems of internal control are effective, with most audits receiving a positive (substantial or satisfactory) assurance opinion.

Annual Report of the Audit and Performance Committee

The Committee was scheduled to receive the Annual Report of the Audit and Performance Committee.

The report provides a summary of the work of the Audit and Performance Committee over the previous year.

The report included details of the Committee's Review of Effectiveness which had been undertaken earlier in the year using the CIPFA Self-Assessment Checklist. The review found that the Committee was generally conforming with CIPFA's best practice, but identified a number of areas where improvements could be made. The report set out a Draft Action Plan to address these, including a number of topics that the Committee agreed should be included in future briefing sessions:

• Risk Management
• Information Security and Cyber Security
• New Global Internal Audit Standards
• The roles of Scrutiny and Audit Committees
• The CIPFA Financial Management Code

The report also confirmed that the Committee's Terms of Reference had been updated.

Cyber Security

The Committee was scheduled to receive the Cyber Security report.

The report summarises the council's approach to Cyber Security. In particular, the report says that since April 2023, a number of improvements have been made to the council's cyber security operations. These include:

• The appointment of external expertise to lead the team
• A new process for ensuring staff compliance with cyber security training
• A new training platform for Councillors which is endorsed by the National Cyber Security Centre.
• Ongoing Phishing campaigns
• A new communication and engagement strategy including:
  • A Cyber Security information portal
  • Regular Communications
  • Bite Size videos
  • Local office awareness campaigns
  • Lunch and learn presentations
  • Drop-in sessions.
• The launch of a 24/7 Security Operations Centre.

The report says that the majority of cyber attacks targeted at the council focus on its people. In the last month, the council says it blocked ~114,000 malicious emails and over 70,000 suspicious log in attempts, mainly from Russia and China.

Work Programme

The Committee was scheduled to agree the agenda items for its next meeting on 5 September 2024, and consider items for the future Work Programme for 2024/25. The Committee also reviewed its Action Tracker which included a number of actions that had previously been requested by the committee.