Transcript

Okay good morning everybody and welcome to this meeting of the Audit Governance Committee on the 11th of September 2024 in the Council Chamber. So please note that this meeting is a public meeting and is being live webcast. There is no fire drill planned so if the alarm sounds please use the exit outside the Council Chamber to go to the car park. Can I please ask committee members and anyone presenting to speak clearly and directly into their microphones. Please ensure all mobiles are switched off or turned to silent. Thank you very much. I would like to also welcome the cabinet member for finance and resources, Councillor David Lewis. Thank you very much. So item number one, apologies for absence and substitutions I can see everybody is here so we don't have any. Fine, thank you very much. Minutes of the previous meeting. So this is the meeting of the 10th of July 2024. Do any members have any comments or queries regarding any of the minutes or are we happy to sign those? Agreed. Thank you very much. Decorations of interest. Does any member have any decorations of interest related to any item on this agenda? No. Thank you. Item number four, questions and petitions. Number one, members questions. We haven't had any public questions. We haven't had any petitions. The deadline for petitions was 14 days before the meeting and no petitions have been received. Thank you. Item number five, the recommendations tracker and work plan. So this is just to review where we are on the various items that we've requested in the past. I think one of the key areas that we looked at last time was the complaints and there's quite a large item further on in the agenda. We'll be looking at that into detail. But do any members have any other queries or comments on the recommendations tracker or work plan? No. Wonderful. Thank you. So the committee is asked to monitor progress on the implementation of actions recommendations from previous meetings in Annex A and note the work plan at Annex B and any changes to it. Are we agreed? Agreed. Thank you very much. Okay. Item number six, risk management. So this is an update on the risk management process that we go through. We do this twice yearly. And so last time was in March and so we're in September now. And I'd like to hand over to David Modi. Thank you, David. Thank you, Chair. So this report, as Chair mentioned, is to do two things really. One is provide a risk management update to the Committee on Activities over the last six months and also to request approval of the risk management strategy. I'll take the paper as read and pull out some of the key points. Firstly, an exercise was undertaken earlier this year to look at the corporate risk register for Surrey County Council and to compare that to some other councils to see whether there were any variations. I've got to thank internal audit for undertaking that piece of work. That was really a helpful exercise. There were probably three takeouts I would suggest from that piece of work. Firstly, when the other councils risk registers were looked at and those councils are shown on the second page of the report, apart from a couple of outliers, Surrey County Council has just tipped the top of the kind of corporate risks. So we've got 22 corporate risks when the exercise was done. Typically what we would find with the corporate risk register, the sweet spot would be somewhere between about 15 and 20. So we're just slightly high of that. I think given the diverse range of activities that this organization does and councils do in general, whether it's fire, whether it's education, whether it's transportation, I don't think that's necessarily unwarranted. So that was one of the takeouts. Second takeout, just a call out, was that when the exercise was undertaken and we looked at the top risks from the other councils, all of those top risks appeared somewhere within the corporate risk of Surrey County Council. So that was very reassuring. There was one exception to that around the rail network of HS2 and the demolition of some buildings, but that didn't relate particularly to our geography. And then the third takeout was that a workshop was undertaken after this exercise with CLT. I led a one hour workshop where we looked at whether indeed, you know, we looked at these findings, whether there was anything else that we potentially wanted to be included in the risk register or indeed if there was anything we wanted to be taking off the risk register at that time. And the summary of that was actually the risk register was on point, so that was kind of the three big things there. A copy of the corporate risk register is included within the report listing out our top risks. There's been one addition, which was around payroll and pensions. Just to kind of preempt any questions on that, that risk is related to significantly Unit 4. Unit 4 was a new system that went live last year as a replacement for SAP, so that was a major systems upgrade. As you would expect with any major systems upgrade, there would be some teething problems. However, we've had some ongoing issues around Unit 4 and particularly within the payroll and pension space, so we put that as a corporate risk and we've got some actions in place to address that. I've also separately got a paper going to ICAB in a couple of weeks, which will be sort of following up on this risk and where we are with that. So just to pull that one out. Only other thing I'd probably draw out is related to the risk management strategy, so that defines our approach to risk management with the council. The strategy gets reviewed annually. I'm not suggesting for this year that we make any changes. I think it's still fit for purpose. And so I'll request approval for that as part of the annual cycle. I'll probably stop there and then invite any questions or comments. Okay, thank you very much indeed, David. Do any members of the committee have any comments or questions at all on the risk management? On the analysis that internal audit did, did we also look at the process of how the risk actually gets onto the register or was it just an assessment of what's on there already? I could take that. What was your other question, Matt? [Inaudible] So if I take that one first, the risk registers were a little bit divergent actually. So even in terms of the number of risks, one organization had 43 corporate risk against another had 11. So there was a big range in terms of the outputs. The structures were reasonably different as well. So there wasn't, I guess, a standard as such. Most organizations were using the five by five matrix that we use, so that's there. So I guess then going back to the question about sort of the methodology on how risks are getting into the corporate risk register. I think the same thing probably applies that different organizations are maybe treating what they see as a corporate risk slightly differently. I did have one other one if that's okay. So is there an opportunity to sort of get a read across from the good positive assurance that we get and the good things that we do here and a read across to the other local authorities? Expand that just a little more for me, Matt. So the things that we do well, so for instance, the divergent of risks from some of the other local authorities' risk maps and stuff, is there an opportunity to share those best practices with them as well? So we can certainly do. I mean one thing that I haven't mentioned in this report is probably over the last six months I've been contacted by 10 or 12 organizations all saying we're here, you're doing really good things with risk management and sorry. So can we have a session with you to run through how you're doing and how you're managing to get all this engagement and so on. So that's policing from that point of view and a lot of that's coming from people that have sort of left sorry and then they've kind of, you know, they've spread the good news. So we are doing some of that but I would honestly say that's probably organizations sort of pulling the information and requesting information rather than me pushing it out. So I'm always open to organizations sort of tapping me up, so to say, but I don't overtly go out and do that. Great, thanks. Ayesha. Thank you very much. It's a really good comprehensive report, David, which was really interesting to me. I just wanted to pick up on our processes for risk identification. I mean, you know, that is the initial step. Do you think our processes in terms of initially identifying risk is as comprehensive as it can be? I think it is, but I was just interested to know, I mean, how closely do we look at the processes that identify the risk initially? Because if you can't identify it and then you can't measure it and then you can't mitigate it. Exactly right. I would say that we are in a reasonably good position. And I say that because there are lots of risk conversations that happen and you have the risk conversations and you're more likely to be able to identify those risks. So at a corporate level, we're capturing that stuff, we're having a monthly CLT session where, you know, I will present the corporate risks and we will kind of pause and we'll have a conversation if there's anything else we should be picking up at the directorate level. So the level below that, there are directorate sessions happening. They're having conversations about that. And I really champion the approach, which is we're not just looking at, you know, this is a list of risk and these are a list of owners. It is we'll have deep dives on specific risks so that it kind of brings stuff out. So I think that, you know, if there's something at directorate level, then I think that's being covered. I think even at the service level, I think we're in a reasonable shape. I'm very sure that there are risks around the organization, which probably aren't necessarily flowing through it because of one reason or another. But I feel reasonably assured that from, you know, any risks which are more significant to the organization, that we are capturing those. Steven, next and then Ross. Please say it's not a question. It's a comment. So thank you very much for the report. It's really, really positive. And thanks to Ensign Lauder for going through the corporate risk register, which I think is a really, really good proactive step. And it does keep everybody tied in. And it's hugely reassuring to hear that these conversations are going on. Just on paragraph 10, it's just again, it's really, really good to see that there are no changes needed. There's no tweaks required. If it's working, don't change it and carry on. So thank you very much. I think it's really, really good. Thank you. Appreciate it. And Ross, you have a question. Yeah, thank you, Chair. Just in relation to the point about information sharing relates to a couple of the questions, actually, and assurance over risk identification. As an internal audit service, we have the benefit because we're a partnership. We do have a lot of access to information and knowledge and intelligence around what is going on in both our partner organizations. But we also work closely with other heads of audit across the country. So when it comes to producing our audit plan, which is a risk based plan, heads of audit work closely together to compare and contrast those risks that are being identified within their organization. So it's not the organization's risk register, but we have that as a sort of backstop of validation against what's being identified as corporate risks. OK. Thank you. And I just had one comment, really, David. You know, we're sitting within the sweet spot, as you say, sort of in paragraph four. I suppose if we had too many corporate risks, we wouldn't be swamped. Is it fair to say that? It is. You know, the corporate risk is we need to be understanding what our big risks are. We do need to understand the priority so we can channel our resources in more risky areas. I don't think it's helpful when you're starting to get large numbers of risks, then you sort of lose the wood for the trees. So, yes, it's a 15, 20, and it will always bounce around a little bit, the numbers. But, you know, that's principally, I think, what you want to be picking up. And then just on the actual strategic risk scores, have those changed at all since March? Any of them? No, no. I think there's going to be some changes coming up, actually. So if there are any, then I'll flag them with the kind of the normal arrows going up and down as needed. OK, fine. And then just, I know we're covering this later, agenda item number eight regarding the financial redress, the complaints, etc. Is that something worth considering putting on the register? So we have a risk sitting within children's risk register, given the number of risks that have been raised over the past year within that space. And I was very kindly furnished with the ombudsman's report from David Lewis. So we do have a director at risk at the moment looking at those complaints, and there's an action plan in place around that as well. OK. So will that make this score chart here somewhere? Will that go on there? So it's not currently a corporate risk. We monitor it as a director at risk. Anything that was going to be a corporate risk, what will happen is we'll have a session at CLT. We'll say, you know, this is a director at risk. We feel that it's now at the point where we need to escalate it. CLT will look at it, agree it. If they've agreed it, then it will go on to this risk register. And similarly, if there's a risk that we think can be downgraded, CLT will look at it, put forward the rationale, and then they can take a view whether it can come off or not. OK. Fine. Thank you. Any other members of any, David?

Yeah. Thank you, Chair. The only other thing to add is that the cabinet at ICAB does look at risk on a quarterly basis, and we do a deep dive at each of those meetings into one of the corporate risks and sort of get into it in detail. So I think that's another part of the process which ought to be noted. And, I mean, David and I speak on a regular basis as well, so that's, you know, if I'm picking up concerns, I feed those through to him and he'll then do further work to determine whether or not, you know, those issues need to come up to the corporate risk register or not. So that's another part of the process of picking up the information. OK. Wonderful. Thanks very much for clarification. Helen. [ Inaudible Remark ] Is that the one? Yes. OK. It's just looking at the table of comparator exercise, which is interesting, isn't it? I mean, questioned by anyone? And what on earth are they covering that we don't? So I think there's probably an amalgamation between what they see as corporate risks and what we see as directorate risks. But there is no correlation between the size of the organization and the number of risks that they're showing in their corporate risk register. OK. Thanks, Helen. Thanks, David. Any other comments from members at all? I can't see any. OK. Thank you. So we're asked as a committee to monitor the progress on the implementation of the actions and recommendations from previous meetings in Annex A. And also note the work-- sorry, wrong one. We are recommending that committee notes the update on risk management and approves the risk management strategy as of September. Are we all agreed? Yes. Right. Thank you. And thank you very much indeed, David. Thanks. So item number seven. So this is the internal audit progress report and that's for quarter one. So the purpose of this progress report is to inform members of the work completed by internal audit between the 1st of April 2024 and the 30th of June 2024. The current annual plan for internal audit is contained within the internal audit strategy and annual plan for 24-25 which was approved by this committee on the 13th of March 2024. And this is over to you, David, I think. Thank you, Chairman. Good morning. Good morning to the committee. So, excuse me, our report is a bit of a bumper edition this time around. We have 24 completed assignments including a number of schools and a couple of grand plans. I think members probably would have had their eye drawn to the fact we start off with rather a lot of partial insurance audits at the beginning of this update. But setting those aside for a minute, I think it's probably worth just contextualizing. There's an awful lot of positive assurance in this report as well. We should not lose sight of that. So, we've done audits of reasonable or substantial assurance in quite key areas such as the Ukrainian funding, financial assessment income collection, the council's people strategy, the iConnect system within our pensions administration side, and on system change control within our applications. So, just as a flavor, there is a lot of positivity in this report despite the fact we must recognize there are six audits that are partial assurance. Looking at those audits as a group, though, I think we need to recognize that there are slightly different conditions around how some of those audits came into our work plan. So, I thought it would be helpful just to give you a little bit of context there because they all have slightly different inferences on that basis. So, for example, the two audits of transition of children to adult social care and community equipment services contract, those were both referred to us by management and were additions to our plan. So, there were known to be issues in those areas already. It's actually quite a positive sign of mature governance that the organization comes to us to ask for assistance in driving improvements. So, we knew they were likely to be lower assurance audits before we started, and as ever, we have actions agreed with management to address those. So, once the findings may have a negativity around them, the process through which the audits were put onto the plan is actually very healthy, I think, as far as the organization goes. The audits of fuel cars was a bit of an odd one because we had some additional capacity in our team through a separate student coming in for a period of time. So, we took a bit of a dive into fuel cars and purchasing cars, both of which are on this report. And I think to virtually everyone's surprise, the controls around fuel cars seemed to have just dropped off in the air. And the reason for that is basically everyone running around getting their mySURRY system implemented. So, that ended up with a path of assurance opinion, but the good thing was there, management were really, really quick to respond to those findings, and we actually managed to do the follow-up in the same quarter, and it's reported in the same progress report. So, you'll see we very quickly raised the assurance level to reasonable assurance on that, and there are now proportionate and active controls back in place. So, again, that's actually quite a good success story as well in a bizarre way. Two of the audits, though, do raise a bit more of a red flag, and that's the follow-up audits we did with tree management and social value and procurement. So, these would have been audits that we had previously concluded last year with partial assurance opinions. The process is to then follow that up and see if we can raise the level of assurance, because we would expect management to have implemented the expected actions and the agreed actions. In both cases, we weren't able to raise the level of assurance beyond partial, and that's because, whilst progress had been made in both cases, actions hadn't actually been fully implemented at the time that we did the review. So, again, there's a slight flag to be raised there, because this is unusual, we've got to be honest. When we do our follow-ups, more often than not, we do find improvement. And I think then there's a piece around the challenge that the organization is finding in resourcing and actually doing everything that needs to be done, because there's such a lot to be done. But both of those we will follow up again in year, because there is a positive travel, direction of travel on both of them. So when we report them back to committee later on, I would hope we can give you the assurance at a rated level. Which then leads us to the final partial assurance, which was in accounts payable. So this is one of the key financial systems that we identify within the mySURI space. It's the second key financial system. We did accounts receivable last quarter, which was reasonable assurance. Accounts payable this time around was not as high as that in insurance terms. And as David alluded to in his presentation, I think we all had expected there'd be some teething issues with a new ERP, and that's understandable. What we have found though, we have current work in the pipeline around the mySURI space. There are other audits in progress or just completed, which are likely to be of the same sort of lower levels of assurance as well. So just to flag that to the committee's attention, there's a lot of work being done to rectify that. We are doing a lot of work with management to help rectify that. But as I say, as a bit of a heads up, this won't be the first and the last of the lower assurance opinions for mySURI systems. That said, again, just to emphasize, we do have actions in place. We do have actions agreed. There's oversight of that. Nikki will be well aware from the mySURI steering group to help and support the organization get where it should be. So again, we'll keep that under review, and the intention will be to flex our audit plan in quarters three and four to get as many follow-ups done of this and future audits that will be reported to make sure that we can try and elevate the level of assurance again back to yourselves if the organization does address what it needs to do. And that was about it actually as an overview, but very happy to take questions should there be any. Okay. Thanks very much indeed, David. Do I see them? Yes, thank you, Chairman, and thank you to David for the explanations with regard to partial assurance. But I have to say that with so many partial assurances come forward, I think that's a matter of concern and a matter of concern that we need to address. But even more important is the fact that after the review, two of those still came up with partial assurance. And I don't know whether there's anything the committee can do to express its concern so far as that's concerned, but I do think we should address that. Do you want to make a comment at all, David or us? Yeah, thank you. We did discuss this with CLT recently, and we have escalated with CLT, and there is a clear commitment there to address these issues now. As you say, it is a concern that, and to be fair, as David said, it is unusual that we conduct a follow-up and things haven't improved. And I think CLT have recognized that as a concern equally. So we will reschedule yet a further follow-up in those areas. But all we can say is that we've given it the profile that we think it needs with management. And the messaging we're getting from management is that they are taking this very seriously and will be taking action to address. So we will obviously report back to committee on the results of our work. But equally, one of the options this committee has as an audit committee is, as it has done in the past, is to request updates directly from management in relation to specific areas in terms of what action management are taking in response. You will get that independent assurance from us at the point of a follow-up, but clearly, in between, you have that option should you choose to use it as a committee. Yes, Jim, could we take that advice on board? Because I think with regard to those two, it would be helpful to have a direct report to the committee. If other members are agreed to that, I'd be very happy to. Yeah. Thank you. Ayesha. Thank you very much, Chair. As you said, David, there's some concern in the report, but I don't think we should lose sight of some of the positives in there. I just wanted to just pick up on our action tracking processes. Do we, as part of that, do kind of random sampling that we can look at? So, you know, look at whether those things that need acting have been done. Is there any process that you think needs improvement in terms of, you know, tracking the actions that need to be taken to make sure that the improvements that have been mitigated are actually actions? Thank you. So I think we've evolved quite an effective action tracking process over the years. We grade all our actions by high, medium, and low instead of the priority. Any high priority action will automatically be followed up, and we have a system that flags the data follow-up to us and the officer responsible for that action. So there's transparency in when it's going to be reviewed, and we will go back and do that all the time. For audits of lower assurance, partial and minimal, they will be followed up, and all the actions in those audits will be reviewed. So that's our main priority. So they will automatically be covered. Which basically then leaves medium and low priority actions that sit in higher assurance reports, if that makes sense. And what I do at the end of every year is to do an exercise to go around and seek assurance from the responsible officers that they have actually addressed all of those. And we will dip sample a few for evidence. Most of it's taken from the assurance, particularly the low assurance or low priority, but we will do some dip sampling to make sure the evidence is there. So by one means or other, all of the actions will be checked off that they have been completed. Dip sampling is random sampling? Is that what dip sampling is? It would probably be-- we'd weight it towards those audits that were either a bit more borderline partial reasonable or where there are more medium priority actions. For the lows, we would tend to sort of take a verbal assurance on those. So if we dip sample anything, there will be mediums. If I could just sort of follow up on that point. One other element to all of this is that we as a service have assumed and inherited a key performance indicator which is the percentage of high priority actions that are implemented by management. Now, there's a lot of debate in the internal audit world about whether that should be a measure of internal audit because clearly it's not our responsibility to implement the actions. But we have done that because we want to give it profile so every meeting of this committee, we report the corporate performance against the percentage of high priority actions that are implemented within timescales. So as you'll see within this particular report, the key performance indicator has fallen below the 95 percent level and that's because of those two follow up audits that are in there. So it's a sort of an additional layer of feasibility that we're giving to action tracking and the importance of implementing actions. [ Inaudible Remark ] Thank you very much. Yes, I mean it is a bit concerning about the large amount of partial reassurances in the report. I'm just going to pick on accounts payable because in the last year, I've had several-- I've been working with the leader on ECHPs and payments to schools in particular and to wait for payments and often it's come back to accounts payable and also from, you know, grants applied as well when people have been awarded a grant and yet the payment has been quite tardy as well. I know there's a webpage that you can go through the process on that but it isn't just about the reputational damage. Your result is not terribly helpful. I mean it's not very reassuring that actually they're going to improve their payments process. I think it's-- because it's-- you know, we spend a lot of money every year on other bodies providing us with services. If we don't pay them on a regular and [inaudible] them again to make sure they have. [ Pause ] I'm sure Nicky might want to come in at some point on this but I mean I would absolutely be convinced the authorities are taking it seriously. You probably wouldn't believe the amounts of collaborative working across departments to get these identified issues sorted out. There is a huge amount of work being done of which we are supporting. But I think the commitment is definitely there. We have a duty as you say to pay people who require payments and an absolute commitment to get it done as efficiently as possible. I don't know Nicky if you want to add anything to that. I actually would want kind of key financial control to receive partial assurance. I think it's probably fair to say that a number of-- well, the majority of the recommendations found by internal audit were not news to the service. They were things we were aware of and we're already kind of working towards on that until it's strengthened. I suppose specifically around ECHP payments they take a slightly different route through. Would that be appropriate or I don't know, Chair? So I think from memory, the last due date for actions would be December. So we would previously schedule a follow-up in quarter four. Honestly, management have managed to do everything expected. Thanks, Helen. Stephen and then Matthew. Thanks, Chair. Just following up on points around the partial assurance, might we add a recommendation to effectively call out that in recommendations to say something along the lines of we know that there are a couple of partial assurances in there. We know that there is work ongoing. We would want to call this out to the corporate leadership team to formally address it. And then that just basically has that front and center on our recommendations rather than having to look into minutes if we could do that as possible. And just to call out again that there is a huge amount of positive work in this as well. So internal audit have done really well. And again, on the dashboard, one of the things that page 98, there's a target of 80 percent for professional qualified and accredited. And for internal audit, they've got actual performance of 94 percent. So a huge well done, I think. But if we can pick up the recommendation, that would be helpful. Yeah, I was going to suggest that we use on behalf of the audit committee if I write to CLT expressing our concerns, et cetera, et cetera, if everybody's happy with that. And I'll share that with you before I send it. Okay. And Matthew next. I mean, I've got to acknowledge there is a significant amount of work you guys have done, so like well done. But my question was going to be, so on their accounts payable then, because some of those issues seem quite concerning and fundamental, quite a lot of them. And my question was basically why is it not minimal assurance? Like what are the aspects of positive assurance that we're taking away that would justify the partial assurance that we've allocated? Because I think when you're reading that and then you compare it to, for instance, the following one, which is the tree management one, you're like partial assurance, partial assurance. But I realize the tree management one is because basically the actions weren't done. It seems like that's what popped over the edge. On the accounts payable, I feel like some of those issues are quite fundamental. And my question would be like were you comfortable with compensatory controls in some areas or what was the things that didn't push it into the edge to give it a minimal assurance opinion? That's a very good question. Thank you. I think in part you've answered that. There's a lot of workarounds, manual workarounds in place that effectively make the system work in the absence of built-in control. So once that's not ideal, we recognize it's there and we recognize it's operative. Some of the issues, although we flagged them in the report, were quite specific. So the remaining value issue only affects a very small percentage of purchase orders. It's referenced though because it's a glitch in the system that at the time was just not understood by Unit 4 themselves. So some of the issues, again, in proportionate terms are less concerning. The manual workarounds on manual recording is not really what you want from an automated system, but that works as a compensating control. The majority of payments were made on time. The majority of payments were made to the right people for the right amount, which is what you want the system to do. Some not so much, but not to a degree that we felt that partial wouldn't be an appropriate assurance. Sorry, just to add to that, I think it's a really good question. But I think, as you know, it's a professional judgment call that we have to make on this. There is no cliff edge that says this must be this. But I think another factor that is taken into account for me anyway, with regards to the borderline opinions like this one, is the extent to which the organization is responsive to the audit. And what was clear from this piece of work was that the organization was taking our findings very seriously and was prepared to take action, was taking action, was investing resource into dealing with the issues. And all of those are factors which would probably help it to fall on the side of partial rather than minimal. Right, so it's like almost risk culture, the fact that they're clear. So how many of these issues then were actually declared by management prior to the audit start? I couldn't give you an exact number, but I would suspect the majority would have been known in advance of the audit and discussed with the auditor to assess the impact and the level of risk. And then, sorry to keep going on, but for the ones that were declared, I realize specifics is a bit difficult, but for the ones that were declared, did they already have like a defined action plan in place to actually deal with them or was that a case of we waited for audit to come and help us with that? So Nicky will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think a lot of the system issues in design and control were being actively investigated and trying to be rectified for quite a while before the audit took place. Yes, okay. Thanks. Helen. I mean, just to follow up, I mean, there was a couple of things that shout out at you, like the fact that some executive assistants have been given authority to be measured. It is important as well to point out that this isn't necessarily invoices sitting within the accounts payable team because invoices aren't sent through or indeed good to be seated on the system by the services, by the due date on the invoice. So part of the recommendation here is about getting a new system that shows that and being able to run the report. Because previously we had a report that did that and it was part of the kind of weekly, monthly processes to review that report can't be run in that format at the moment. So a lot of this isn't isn't necessarily about there being problems with the system and getting things on the system and physically paid. It's more about how in an organization of this size, the kind of flow of things being good to be seated to get the right team. So it's kind of a bit of both. And you and that. So that will be part of it as well, because I understand exactly what you're saying. If you haven't had them. And that's why it's so important that we get a report that enables us to identify where that's happening. And the one third, the one third late payments would include all that process. It's a big number, isn't it? It's timely. That would be great. Thank you. Yeah, sure. [ Inaudible ] So I get access to all of the reports that come out of internal audit. So I can check to make sure that there is a, if there is an appropriate risk that needs to be added to the corporate risk as we do. We don't go down to the level of detail that internal audit do where they might have nine different actions. But if there's something significant internal audit pulling out, then that will get mapped across accordingly. Yeah, yeah. Thanks. Nicky. Yeah, sorry. I just wanted to add a point of clarification on that one third as well. Because that finding is in relation to the approval of the PO or the purchase order. So there's various stages. So the purchase order is approved and our procurement standing orders. The purchase orders should be approved before the services or the goods are delivered and paid for. That one third of audit testing found that PO's were being raised at the point that you're not waiting for the invoice to land on your desk. And then saying, Oh, I need to raise the purchase order goods. Maybe that statement, that bullet point needs a bit of explanation there. Because, you know, that's going to be something that's quite difficult for us at the moment. Perhaps that could be further explained. I don't know. What does you think, Chair? Yeah, if you're happy. Although we've got the details within the actual internal audit reports themselves. So I think if you do wish to see those reports, you can request that from Russell David, the actual detail. So if you'd like to see the contact with Russell David, that's possible. If you'd like to see the detail behind that. OK. Just had a couple of things. Are CLT aware of the December deadline for them to complete all these actions at all? In relation to accounts payable? Yeah. So whether they're aware of that specific date, I'm not sure. But it's fair to say that in response to this audit and the previous audit of general letter integrations, which relates to Unit 4, a program board is being stood up. The first meeting, which is tomorrow, which I'm attending as well, which is specifically focused on stabilization of Unit 4 control environment and the actions arising from internal audit reports. So whether they're aware of the specific December deadline in relation to accounts payable, I would expect them to have a much broader visibility of all of the actions arising from all of the audit reports in relation to Unit 4. And I imagine that will now be monitored through CLT once this board has been stood up tomorrow. It would be good to have a deadline because I'm always worried that this just drags on. It will be another six months or a year before these things are resolved. So because, you know, one of the recommendations I think I said earlier is that I will be writing to CLT formally just to express our disappointment about this. And also whether we could have a member of CLT coming in March to address the audit committee, just to explain what's been done or what actions have been taken if the audit committee are happy with that. If that's feasible for them to get these actions addressed. Yeah, so in terms of our position as internal audit, as David mentioned, given the importance of these areas and the materiality involved, on the back of the commitment that we've received from management to address these issues urgently, we have taken the unusual step of setting time aside in the same audit year, this year, to ourselves go back and provide independent assurance that the actions are being implemented and the issues are being addressed. So our plan is to be in a position to report back to this committee before the end of the year that these actions have been implemented and addressed. Now, clearly, we can make the commitment to set the time aside to do that, but that is dependent on management implementing the actions. So and that's part of the reason why I'm attending the stabilization board so that we can work closely with management to understand the timescales for implementation, so that we could hopefully be in a position to provide updated opinions by the end of the year. So through our work, we're going to be working closely and monitoring that through internal audit. But if the committee wishes to receive something independently from management directly on what's being done, then that obviously is something the committee to request. Yeah, because my worry is that if CLT don't have a deadline, it just gets pushed back. So I think we as a committee would like to see some action taken on these, because I know committee members are quite worried about this one. Stephen. Thanks, Chair. I think your suggestion is actually bang on. And as much as a recommendation writing to CLT and asking a representative from CLT to come to this committee and give us an update. You know, audit have got that independent view. They provided a number of actions and then if you get a member of CLT to come to audit committee and answer some questions and say how much progress they've made and addressing these items, that would be be perfect. I think it's a great suggestion. Anybody else have any comments? Just one final comment. Would you say a lot of this is due to my Surrey, the issues to do with that? So it's fair to say that there are two areas of concern for us at the moment. One is in relation to follow up audits that haven't improved, as David mentioned, and the other is in relation to my Surrey. So whilst these are key financial systems, I think it is very fair to say that actually the root cause is relating to my Surrey implementation. I think with any major system implementation on a scale like this, you would expect some degree of problems at this stage. The question really is what the scale of those problems are and how quickly they're addressed and that's obviously what we're trying to get visibility to here. Yeah, no pressure. Sorry, Stephen then you, Richard. Richard, you go. Thank you. Raising of purchase orders kind of has a flag in my mind. Is there anything we should be doing to get that process improved? They're obviously coming from all kinds of directions, but is there one particular area that we can focus on to just move those to being done earlier and better? So there's a number of things that we're doing to try and do that, including sort of training and comms and making sure it's clear. I think the main recommendation within this report is that at the moment we are struggling to identify trends or functionality out of the system isn't giving us what we need in order to target specific areas, which is what we used to do as a part of our business as usual activity previously. So step one, as I say, we're doing a number of things, some of which we can do just through communications and training. We are quite dependent on pushing and escalating. Thanks, Nikki. Thanks, Richard. Stephen. I just wanted to clarify what I was suggesting we asked for. It was around the items of partial assurance, not doing a deep dive into the issues with my Sorry and Unit 4 because there is significant work ongoing elsewhere with that. If those audit findings aren't addressed in a way that we've seen with the two items here, then by all means, yes. But my concern was around the partial assurance items and if we can invite CLT to come back and give a view on whether or not they have progressed. So not peace at this particular moment. Thank you. No worries at all. Andy, thank you. Thank you, Chair. Just to say on the my Sorry issue, I mean Russ has referred to the stabilization board which meets this week for the first time. I've been in regular contact with Liz Mills who is the interim executive director responsible for that. She'll be chairing that board. I met with her this week to discuss it in terms of deadlines, meaning that they have set deadlines for the work to be completed. And budget has been made available to enable the necessary enhancements to be made to my Sorry. And in line with the recommendations that came from the lessons learned report into the implementation of my Sorry, which Steven was instrumental in authoring on behalf of the select committee. I will have complete oversight of all the papers that go to that board so that I am kept complete. That's being made. So I just wanted to give you that assurance that from a portfolio holder point of view, I will have complete visibility and Liz Mills and I have agreed to meet on a fortnightly basis. So she'll update me on the progress that's being made. The intention is to get the work completed, the my Sorry work by the end of the year. I think the drop dead deadline is the end of March. But the intention is to try and get it done by the end of the year. But that will be quite, in my view, that's quite a challenging timetable. But I just wanted to give you the assurance that that's happening and that as a portfolio holder, I would have complete visibility over it. Thanks very much, David. Are those papers publicly available for, say, minutes of meetings? No. And how about-- is that the same as a different board that you're going to-- the same board, OK? And who are those shared with just the members of this board then, those papers that you get? I think it's an office of board-- those papers would normally be shared. Perhaps ASNAP can advise but my understanding is that they wouldn't be in the public domain and they're not normally shared with members. This is just really picking up the recommendation if you remember that when we-- when the resources select committee looked at the implementation of the DB&I program, it was a lengthy debate as to whether the portfolio holder should be an ex-officio member of the program board. It was eventually decided that that for all sorts of reasons wouldn't be appropriate but it was decided that the portfolio holder would have complete visibility of the papers and the work that was taking place. So it's in that spirit that it has been agreed that the same thing will happen with this board and with the papers and everything around the board plus the fact as I said that Liz has agreed to give me a fortnight the update in terms of the progress that's been made and we can talk about the agenda for the board, any concerns that I have. So I think the way it's been set up is very much in the spirit of the recommendations that came out of the lessons learned review. Okay. Thank you. Did you know what to say? No. Thank you, Chair. But I totally agree with Councillor Lewis's summary of the internal operational officer meeting that's taking place. Okay. Anybody else have any comments or questions on this item? I can't see anything. Okay. So it's recommended to this committee that we note the report and consider any further action required or any issues. And I think what we're going to do is I'll write formally to the CLT on behalf of the audit committee expressing our concerns and also invite a member of the CLT probably in the March meeting to see what progress has been made regarding all these various recommendations. [ Inaudible ] Are we all agreed? Agreed. Thank you very much. And thank you, Russ, David, for a really comprehensive report again and for all the clarification issues. Thank you. Okay. Item number eight. So this is the LGSCO's annual review letter for Surrey County Council. This provide an update on complaint statistics recorded about Surrey County Council and its performance in responding to Ombudsman investigations following the publication of local government social care Ombudsman's annual review letter for 2324. I think it's over to you, Sarah. Thank you. It is indeed. Thank you very much, Chair. And so recognizing that the information contained in the Ombudsman's annual review letter offers us as an organization some really valuable insight into both our organizational approach to complaints, but as well as a really important independent data source that enables us to benchmark our performance with other comparable councils. So we wanted to bring an in-depth report to this committee on the findings of that annual letter, in addition to the annual complaints report that was considered by the Audit and Governance Committee back in June of this year. There's quite a bit of detail contained within the report, so I'll briefly highlight a few key headlines before opening up for questions. I have senior colleagues with me from Children's Families and Life and Learning, as well as customer services to help provide any additional information or context that would be helpful for members. So in 2324, the local government and social care Ombudsman recorded an increased volume of complaints about Surrey County Council compared to previous years. It was a total of 324 complaints they received compared to 215 complaints the previous year, which was approximately when taking into account the whole number of complaints that the council received that year, around 12 percent escalated to the Ombudsman. Of those 324 complaints, 158 were investigated by the Ombudsman, which was a significant increase from the 81 that we had investigated the previous year. Over half, 166, were not investigated or were closed after initial inquiries. Of those 158 complaints that were investigated, 144 were upheld by the Ombudsman, so that totaled 89 percent of investigations that were upheld against the national average for county councils of 85 percent. When benchmarked with councils in our SIP for peer group, we've identified that Surrey County Council is statistically different, both in terms of the volume of investigations and the number of upheld complaints, and you'll see that in figures one to four in the report. We also ranked 14 out of 14 councils for the number of upheld Ombudsman complaints in the 100,000 population, and we were sitting at 11.6 percent, and the details of that breakdown are shown in figure five. This position for Surrey County Council for that year has primarily been driven by a disproportionate number of complaints about education services, specifically special educational needs and disabilities, or SEND as it's otherwise known. We had 116 upheld complaints in this area, and we had one public report issued about the council. The remainder of the upheld decisions were made up of 14 for adult social care services, and 11 for children's social care services. There's a number of factors that have led to this rise in Ombudsman investigations for SEND services in Surrey, some of which are related to external pressures, such as the shortage of educational psychologists, the provision of school places, as well as high demand for services in Surrey, with over 15,000 children and young people on education, health and care plans in the county. It's also nationally the fastest growing area of casework for the Ombudsman as a whole, and that was recognized in their annual report. Recognizing the need for positive intervention in this area to improve the performance for children, young people and families in Surrey, the County Council took a decision in 2023 to invest 15 million pounds in a recovery plan, and the details of the improvement actions being undertaken in this area have been detailed out for the committee in appendix two to the report. It's fair to say this is also an issue that's been subject to quite a lot of scrutiny by the relevant select committee and also by cabinet as well. Further information of the root causes of complaints upheld by the Ombudsman across all of those areas, we've got three primary areas, tends to be education and children's services and social care, adult social care, and the improvement actions associated with those Ombudsman recommendations are detailed in paragraphs 24 to 39. Given the time lag between complaints being made to the Council and then decided on by the Ombudsman due to the timeframes that apply for people being able to make complaints to the Ombudsman, it's anticipated it will take at least a further year before we start to see a real impact of the improvement activity reflected in the Ombudsman's data. So for example, 71 percent of the upheld complaints that the Ombudsman identified in 23-24 actually related to events that took place in previous years. However, it is positive to note that we are beginning to see signs of improvement. We've had less Ombudsman inquiries received so far this year compared to the previous year. We've had 54 recorded to date as opposed to 84 for the same period last year. In addition, unlike other councils in our SITFA group, no concerns were raised about the timeliness or quality of the Council's response to Ombudsman inquiries despite us having a higher volume of cases. There is a financial as well as reputational risk to Ombudsman complaints. These are where we've not been able to resolve concerns to the satisfaction of customers or where there have been significant concerns around maladministration or service failure that have warranted an independent investigation. In terms of the financial redress, we detailed this in the annual complaints report that came to committee in June but it's worth restating that we had 540,000 pounds approximately that was paid out in 23-24 for financial redress associated with complaints and approximately 345,000 pounds of that was the corporate oversight of the financial redress paid as a result of customer complaints to make sure that we can act early and we can do positive interventions at an early point as and when needed. We also recognize the important opportunities that complaints provide for us to learn and improve. Every complaint provides that opportunity. Not only our service delivery but also our procedures for managing customer complaints and so the report also sets out the recommendations of an operational review that took place late last year of our complaints handling practice and you'll see those recommendations detailed out in paragraph 51 of the report. That also included reinstating the role of a senior complaints practice lead to build consistency and practice and to improve our organizational oversight of what's happening across the entire organization and Anitha who is taking that role is with us here today. Recognizing that complaints management is the responsibility of the whole organization, we're also taking the opportunity presented by the customer transformation program to really take a cross-organizational approach to improving our processes, making better use of our technology and creating crucially and improve there and open up for questions from members. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks very much indeed Sarah. Do any members have any comments or questions at all? Ayesha. Thank you very much Chair. Again, a comprehensive report which is really good to see. Can you tell us what our compliance rate is with the Ombudsman's recommendations? That is 100% that the Ombudsman found in those failings where they got health complaints. And does that tally with our peer as well? Is that similar? Do they tally about, you know, 100% or are they a bit lower? It very much tallies. It's quite rare for a council to refuse to take forward an Ombudsman recommendation. As part of the drug, we are in line with our peers in that regard. Okay. Thanks. I just had a question. In terms of the process Sarah, does it only go to Ombudsman if the resident or complainant isn't happy with the way it's being dealt with at the council or how does the process work? Certainly. So it's a legal right for anybody to take a complaint to the Ombudsman. They feel, for example, there's been undue delay or the significance of the matter raised. So it is a legal right. Even if we've upheld a complaint, it can still go to the Ombudsman and the Ombudsman can uphold the complaint. They might look at a different recommendation or a different remedy to the complaint. But it's very much up to the individual who is the complainant. Okay, fine. Thank you. Any other comments? Stephen. Thank you very much for the report and the introduction. Very, very comprehensive. One of the key items that I'm always interested in with these types of things is the action plan and how we're going to fix it. And I know from the report paragraph 48 and 49 there was an internal review taken and there's a comprehensive, well there's summary action plan points there and you have a target of 31st of March 2025 to complete those items. Could you maybe just talk a little bit about what the progress on these items are? Obviously you've mentioned that the senior complaints practice lead is now in post, which is good to hear. But if you can maybe talk to some of the other items and give us a bit of an update about where things are and where they're leading towards please. Thank you. Yes, certainly I can do. And I think it would be no surprise to note that this is a need for this kind of to-do list in the first few months in roll. So very much these actions are I think reflective of the time in which that review took place. So there are a number of actions within that which are around reviewing our systems and our reporting and our data, our insights for complaints. So I'll hand over to my colleague, Eleanor, if you wanted to give a little bit more information in terms of our reporting processes and our current review of our complaints management system. So good morning everybody. I recently joined Surrey County Council as the interim assistant director of customer experience back in June. So nice to meet you all. In terms of my area of focus in reporting, what we've done over the past six weeks or so is implemented a new monthly complaints report and reporting template that gives us, previously we had a weekly one and it listed individual complaints. Unfortunately that doesn't really give us trend analysis and which is really important in terms of complaints and particularly around learning. So we've designed a new monthly report and that will pull out the themes, the learning and the actions because it's great to understand the learning but if you don't do anything about it then it doesn't help us drive improvement. So we've pulled that together for the area of complaints that I'm responsible for which is what we call non-statutory corporate complaints minus education which sits in the children's directorate and August will be the first month that we put all statutory and non-statutory complaints into that report and that report will go to all of the CLT members, the directors and assistant directors below that so they have a monthly view of that. In terms of the case management system which I think is one of our areas had colleagues talking previously about systems and technology and getting reporting right. The current system that we have doesn't, it makes it very hard to extract data. It includes a lot of manual interventions in order to analyze that data and to really understand what's going on and take a more preventative approach rather than reactive. So one of the things that I have kick started earlier this month is a new complaints case management system procurement. Now I'm keen to look at the case management systems we already have in the council rather than get a new one. So I can't give you a lot of detail on that just yet but I'm the project executive of that and working with my assistant director colleagues in adults and children's directorate to pull together our requirements around that and make sure we have better management through technology as well as data and insight coming out of that. So those are the two areas that I'm focusing on in my... [ Inaudible ] training for specified complaint handlers within the organization but it goes beyond that. It's about how does every member of staff manage a complaint when it's presented about designing some core customer interaction skills training. We've rolled that out to approximately 150 colleagues across the council already and we're expanding that to offer that to the whole organization. And again, complaints handling will be part of those essential customer service interaction skills. So there's some of the key activities coming out of that previous operational review. As I said, these are two executive leaders within the organization. Thank you very much both for those updates. So just in summary, all of these actions that are due to be completed by the end of March, they're still on track to be done by the end of March, yes? They are still on track to be done by the end of March. Perfect. We have come to bring an update on those actions back to committee in November. That's what I was going to ask for. So well done. Thank you. [ Laughter ] Thanks Steve and thanks Sarah. Helen. Thank you very much Sarah for your report which is really good and easy to read and clear about you know where the problems are which-- but it is quite significant, isn't it? That Surrey is at the bottom of the table and quite significantly bigger complaints all around the ECHPs really. We know we've had a problem with those. We have put-- you know, we know that the leaders put in the extra 15 million pounds and a lot of the complaints seem to be focused on the process of the actual ECHPs, not so much on the provision but actually on getting the process through. So how come-- you know, as members, you know, residents write to us and say I'm having real problems getting my child looked after. Can you help? And we're all frustrated by this as well. And they quite rightly want to have their children properly assessed and therefore the education process is properly applied. So how can we be assured that this year's numbers are going to be-- 'cause it's still early in the financial year. So how can we be assured by the time we get to next April-- I think just to reflect generally, of course this is not where we want to be when we're benchmarking ourselves against peers. We have identified the key driver for that. So I'm gonna hand over to my colleagues Steven and Sam who will have more detail around what's happening in that particular area. [ Inaudible Remark ] Thank you. Good morning everyone. My name is Steve Turner. I'm the Interim Assistant Director for Additional Needs and Disabilities in the northeast quarter of the county. And I'm here essentially representing Tracy Saunders who's the lead on the EHDP recovery plan. So as Sam said, the biggest category of complaints has been around the education and healthcare needs assessment. And whilst that has focused predominantly on the process and the timeliness, there is a significant element of that that is associated with parental dissatisfaction with the provision being put in place in a timely manner. So as Sam said, in terms of the timeliness of assessments that has significantly improved at what we were-- in the kind of low teens, it's currently sitting in the 70s being completed on time as a consequence of the recovery work that Tracy's led on and the investment that the council has put in. So, you know, and we are seeing some green shoots of improvement in terms of a reduction in the number of complaints that are related to the assessments from 70 percent down to about 10 so far this year. The second category, a systemic level relates to annual reviews. I think about 9 percent of the complaints related to annual reviews and there is a dedicated backlog team focusing in on improving the timeliness of our annual reviews and that has improved from the mid-30s to currently in the mid-50s and the target is to get to 75 percent by the end of this calendar year. And then the third category is around missing provision. And I think I'll come back to the kind of substance of that in a second, but I think what we have been trying to do is put in place a range of kind of measures and strategies and approaches which are around early intervention and support. So trying to intervene early, put in place kind of support so education and healthcare needs assessments aren't necessary, but children and families get the support they need without that kind of statutory intervention. We've been doing a lot of work around our communication so there is a strand of work around something called relational working which is around improving the way in which we interact and work with our parents and families to try and rebuild some of the trust and confidence that we've lost over recent times. And then we've been putting in quite a bit of training and support to staff around supervision, induction, legal training, those kinds of things. One of the key elements in this arena and one of the contributions to our poor performance around timing of both assessments and reviews has been around staffing challenges, the numbers of EHC needs assessment requests have gone up substantially in recent years and the number of plans that we have got have increased, nearly doubled I think in the last five years or so. So one of the key things around the end-to-end review has been around looking at the right size of the service and making sure that we've got sufficient capacity in the right workplace. And what we've also looked at as part of the recovery plan is something called the end-to-end review which is looking at the whole process to ensure that our process is as efficient and effective as possible to ensure that it's as timely as we can possibly make it. Moving specifically onto provision, I think this is an area of challenge for us because demand for specialist places is outstripping our ability to have them in place through the investment from the DFE. So I think that will continue to be a challenge for us and we are looking at alternatives in this area in terms of looking at resource provision, small units as a means of trying to increase the typing range of provision that we have got. Also looking with our schools at trying to support the greater inclusion of children with eligible provision and some of the early intervention and support services I refer to. So there is a lot of activity going on. What I would like to reinforce and re-emphasize is a comment that Sarah made earlier around the time lag. So many of the complaints that are in the system do go back a kind of year or two in some cases because they have to go through not just the local authorities complaints processes but also the Ombudsman's one as well. So it's on a period of time. Thank you very much indeed for that. I'm so glad you brought your team along with you because I think that's been really, really helpful. Obviously, the levels of complaints to the local government Ombudsman is a significant factor in us recognizing the issues that the council is experiencing. And I understand what you're saying about the length of time some of these cases could take to come to the Ombudsman. So I think it would be useful in future to know when those complaints started so that we would have maybe the, you know, the columns not just said how many that there had been in the year but when they had been instigated. So we could then be assured that the real figures were coming across and we would understand. Obviously, it would be a success for us if fewer complaints make it to the Ombudsman and we deal with those successfully internally. That's an obvious case but I think you could do with that timeline. And thank you so much for explaining that in so much detail. We're obviously really concerned about this issue as councilors. You know, it's a big issue. It's a child's, you know, need to be well informed on this. I'm grateful for you bringing that to us. If we could have that information about the timelines of the complaints that would probably help us as well. And the date of the event that it relates to. We'll take that forward. Thank you. Thanks very much. Stephen. Yes, thank you, Chairman. And thank you to the officers for a very comprehensive report and for the updates which I found very, very useful. But we are considering a report which identifies 141 complaints being upheld and something like more than half a million pounds paid in compensation which is obviously very, very serious and very much a concern to the public. And I must say that I have not experienced any reduction in the number of complaints in these areas which have come to me as a local member in recent months. So that's a matter of concern. I do note that in the proposed recommendations we're going to receive a report in November and I hope that's going to be a comprehensive report on what progress is being made in the areas to follow up what we heard this afternoon, this morning. But I also think it would be helpful to add to that report an indication of the number of complaints which we are aware of going to the Ombudsman during the course of the current year and what the basis of those are because I think that would help us to understand whether we are making progress or not and that's important. Thanks very much, Stephen. I just had a couple of queries. I know Stephen touched on the $540,000 financial address. That divided by, say, the $140,000 upheld complaints is about $4,000 roughly per person. Are there any outliers? Is that roughly $4,000 on average or do some of them, you know, some of the financial address for an individual might be $30,000 or some of them might only be a couple of hundred? Do we know that's all, Sarah? So it does vary. So the Ombudsman directed a read, the rest was paid through the local procedures in terms of our local resolution. So it will be dependent on the case. The Ombudsman has financial remedy guidance that they follow. So it pays for what was missed and the Council would have had to pay for that anyway. There is something around financial redress for distress, time and trouble. So much depends on the individual circumstances of the complaint. I think what we've identified through seeing this figure, which I think we would all agree is much higher than we would want it to be, is to do some more detailed analysis. So do some more detailed analysis in terms of why we are, why the Ombudsman is recommending the level of payments that they are to understand if that is a consistent. That will again help us be able to show more visibility to the committee on this. Okay. Thanks, Sarah. Just following up something that you're saying, Steve, about the number of EHCP requests rising and rising. If they're going to keep rising, is it going to just be so difficult to ever keep on top of this? So in terms of the EHCP needs assessment request, they have actually gone down by 10 percent since September of last year. So again, there are some green shoots suggesting that the action we've taken is having the desired impact. But of course, those are coming in, I think, putting pressure on them and in the system and that's a national issue that's not localized just to sorry, as members will be well aware. Okay. Helen. I mean, I think the point is that the recovery plan recommends early intervention, earlier intervention so that parents do not have to go down the EHCP. Anybody else have any comments or questions? Okay. Thank you very much indeed, everybody, for a really comprehensive report and, you know, really well answered questions as well. It's not an easy area, but we look forward to seeing you in November, I think. So I've just got recommendations. So we as a committee are, note the contents of this report, the analysis of the annual review letter for 23-24 and Surrey County Council's performance compared to other similar councils, which we've got. And also note the proposed improvement actions with a further update on these to be provided as part of the mid-year complaints update, which is scheduled for our meeting November 2024. Are we all agreed with that? Fine. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you very much everybody. You don't have to take it all, but it's up to you. Okay. Item number nine. So this is the Audit and Governance Committee, the annual report for 23-24. And I think you just say a couple of things. Yep. Thanks, Chair. So in line with the recommendation, the annual report provides assurance on how the committee demonstrates impact and fulfills its purpose. And it covers the period of May 23-24. So undertaking oversight of the management of internal control systems is fundamental. The committee provides a high level and independent focus on financial accounts and audit and governance matters, such as the member code of conduct. The committee's activities are in line with the core functions of the terms of reference, such as the regulatory framework, audit activity, accounts and ethical standards. And the report provides a summary of the items considered on the work plan, reflects the committee's questions, requests and recommendations. And the committee is to review and comment on the annual report commending it to October's Council meeting. Thank you very much, Amelia. Do any members-- I think it's a very thorough report of what we've achieved in the last year, 23-24. Do any members have any comments or questions about it or feel that anything has been missed from the report that should be in there? No? Stunned silence. I take that as agreed. Okay. So it's recommended that this committee reviews and comments on the annual report 23-24 and commends it to October's Council meeting. Are we all agreed? Thank you very much indeed. Right. Item number 10. So this is the amended arrangements for dealing with allegations of breaches of the member code of conduct and appointment of independent persons. So the Surrey County Council arrangements for dealing with allegations of breaches of the member code of conduct form passed the Council's constitution. The interim monitoring officer has reviewed the arrangements and identified a number of areas in which these could be further strengthened. The arrangements also make provision for the appointment by Council of at least one independent person, which we have, whose views must be sought by the Council before it takes decision on any allegation which has decided should be investigated. The current independent persons have notified the interim monitoring officer that they will be stepping down at the end of the term in December 2024. So this report sets out the process for recruitment of the two new independent persons. And over to you, Asma. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. There's not much further to add to that and hopefully you would have the opportunity to read the report. I just want to highlight paragraph 11 that thank you to all parties. There has been an agreement to a cross-party recruitment panel for the independent persons, but hopefully will take place after the efforts have gone adult listing. So apart from that, I've got nothing further to add. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much, Asma. And I see Helen, you're on here. John Rabin is on here and Amanda from the RA group. So thank you very much for all willing to volunteer to do that. Do any members of this committee have any comments on the process? Quite straightforward. So the Audit and Governance Committee, note the new code of conduct for Councillors complaint form that has been implemented at Appendix A, agrees the proposed amendments to the arrangements for dealing of the Section 6, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution, set out in Appendix B to this report and recommends them to the County Council for approval. Number 3, approves the updated independent person role profile set out in Appendix C to the report. Notes the proposed recruitment process being undertaken. Number 5, following the interview process, recommends the preferred candidates to the 10th of December County Council meeting to be appointed as independent persons. And number 6, agrees that the newly appointed independent persons be invited to attend meetings of the Audit and Governance Committee in advisory capacity in relation to member conduct matters only. Are we all agreed to those recommendations? Thank you very much. I believe that is the end of the meeting. So thank you all very, very much indeed for all your contributions, all the questions, et cetera, et cetera. So thank you so much. And the next meeting of the Audit Governance Committee will be on the 20th of November 2024. And I look forward to seeing you all there. I close the meeting at 11.35. Thanks very much, Amelia.