Transcript

Transcript

Mr Councillor Arjun Mittra, I'm the Chair of the Governance Audit, Risk Management and Standards Committee. Can I welcome all members of the committee? Can I also note that this meeting is being webcast by the Council and those present may be picked up in recordings. Can I please remind members and officers to use the microphone when speaking by pressing the middle speaker icon? Without further ado, dive into the agenda. Item number one, absence of members. Firstly, we have apologies from Councillor Edith David, and secondly, to notify the committee that Jack Chan, the independent member of the committee, has resigned from the committee due to changing work commitments. Can I place on the record our thanks to him for all of his hard work on the committee, and we wish him well for the future. Item number two, minutes of the previous meeting, there is an action log. Chair, are we in the process of looking for a second independent member? I think that is a discussion that needs to be had. My understanding is that we're actually unusual in having one, let alone two independent members. Apparently, a lot of other councils don't even have one. I don't think we'd want to get rid of you, Richard, so I think definitely, I think that's a very, very good, sorry. Indeed, yeah. I think that's a very, very good point and very well made by both. Right. Right. Just going back into the minutes of the previous meeting, for the sustainability program, officers advised that the some required, the sustainability program would be circulated to the committee. I think that was done very shortly after the meeting. Note that. Next one down, officers advised that the assistant director of estates and decarbonisation would be requested to circulate information. Oh, sorry, council rights. Yeah, obviously great to review information about the finances, but I'm also concerned about the welfare of the staff and what we're doing to support as well, so. Yep. Great. Yeah, just to know, there was a supplementary agenda which was published, which had the answer to that, so. Yeah. That's it, that would be the expansion increase in these figures. Members requested a report be provided for work of the Adult Social Care Financial Sustainability Board. This includes what measures being, I managed to read that one. We've got that on the agenda slightly later on. Yep. Yep. Yep, got it. The committee noted that there were numerous bodies which owed significant amount of debt to the council and the recovery of these sums would help improve the council's liquidity. So, members requested a quantitative assessment from the Treasury team to evaluate the process, progress and effectiveness of the strategic priorities set out within the Q1 report. So, I'm not seeing happy faces, but I'm assuming we're happy to know. Right. Item number three, Declaration of Members' Disclosable Pecuniary Interests and Elaine on digital. Hiya. So, this is the report on the quarterly risks. So, we're looking at the Q2 risks for this year, which covers July to September. The report focuses on the strategic risks and also the high-level service risks. So, that's any service risk that scores 15 or above. During that quarter, there were 195 open risks. 25 of these were strategic level. And of those 25, five of them were scoring at a high level. 25 were high-level service risks. So, in total, we had 30 high-level risks reported during that quarter. A summary of each of the report. A summary of each of those risks is provided in the covering report, with the detail of each of those risks in the attached appendix. So, if you go to Appendix B, it's got all the high-level risks listed there. I'm happy to take any questions or comments, but I might have to take those away and speak to the relevant risk owners. I'll do my best. Thank you very much. Does anybody have any questions? Councillor Prager. Thanks, Chair. I think, firstly, it's just worth mentioning that it's really positive to see a continued reduction quarter after quarter in the number of open risks. So, that's thanks to the efforts of the officers. So, that is very much appreciated. There are a number of risks that are outlined in the report. And without wishing to suggest that one is more important than another, I think, for me, the one that really jumped out was in relation to the affordability of Brent Cross. And since the new administration has withdrawn the assets regeneration and growth or housing and growth committee, as it was in a number of different titles, we don't really have a committee anymore that focuses on these. I feel like the GARMS committee really is that catch-all committee, where this can at least be discussed, especially in a financial context. And the affordability of Brent Cross is, I think, a potentially debilitating risk to the Council. It's a huge project. And, you know, we're talking about hundreds of millions. We're not talking about tens of millions. And having a committee which reviews the costing and can maintain… Sorry, I'm just scrolling through to try and find the… Over here, I just don't have the… There we go. Yeah, thank you. So, I just think that it's really worth focusing on and getting a bit of a report. I recall that it had the interim chief executive as the risk owner… Sorry, I'm still struggling to find it, but who's not here tonight. But I think it's really important to focus on all of these risks, of course. But if we could just get a little bit of an update around Brent Cross and where we currently stand because of the magnitude of the impact that it could have. I don't think that's an understanding of the question at all. In terms of governance arrangements, I think that would normally sit with Cabinet in terms of the general overview of how that project is going as a Cabinet member. So, I think… For which the work programme is agreed between the chair and the vice chair. So, I'm very happy to have a discussion with the chair of OSC about whether to put that… Right, okay, well… Right, no, not at all. I think there's a lot… It's a very large committee. And the membership changes regularly. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know… I made no comment about that. I got it done in an hour and a half last time, I have you known. I think it's probably worth having a conversation in the first instance. It would probably be very helpful. If I may, Kevin, you'll recall from your previous stint at Barna Council about… I mentioned the magnitude of Rencross and the potential impact from a financial… I'm specifically talking about a financial perspective that any of these overruns, these adverse macroeconomic conditions could have. I think overrun scrutiny might be the correct bucket where that's more of a capsule committee, but there's no financial scrutiny… There's little financial scrutiny carried out there. This committee, I believe… And there's been a change in the committee structure which allows for these things to fall between the cracks. I'm not sure if perhaps this is the… Actually, this should be the best committee to discuss the financial impact when we have the financial officers attending and reporting back and available to answer questions. Well, we're not a budget scrutiny committee, as much as I would love us to be in some ways. Unfortunately, that's not quite our remit at the moment. I think… As I say, I'll take that away and I'll have a conversation with the chair of OSC and whether it needs to be attached… As a committee to OSC. We can make a referral, so I'm quite happy to do that. I think we'll ask officers to do that. Do we need to vote on it or is it… I'm happy to accept it. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Chair, we're making a note in a minute and I'll refer it on to the scrutiny manager to pick up at the scrutiny chairs meeting next and see if we can get it added to the agenda for that meeting. Not only does that committee have a budget scrutiny role annually, but it does look at the quarterly out-term reports. Thank you. And they're quite slim, the committee agendas at the moment, so one more item won't hurt. Yeah. Well, I can always table members' items. Are you okay with that as an approach going forward? Fine. Anybody else have any comments on this item? I feel sorry for Ella. Oh, Councillor Radford and then Richard. I don't know if Councillor Mitchell was saying that he felt sorry because there were too many or not enough questions, but I'll plow ahead anyway. For the major project delivery failure, which has increased to 15 from 10, talked about the PMO has had a number of staff-related issues this quarter. But I know that's sort of a slightly vaguely written potentially for a reason, but if there's – I just thought I'd say that, I mean, cyber security is a big risk on here, but it's long-term because it's a lining of business continuity and other things. But, of course, this week we've been told that it's power, water, and then health and local government that are very much at resurgence. So, in the previous year, we have had a very good report on cyber security which will respond to that directly. You know, we have very recently reviewed this as a – Okay, anything else? Recommendations on page nine that the committee note the status of the Council strategic and high-level 15-plus service risks, including the controls slash mitigations in place to manage these risks. Is that agreed? That's agreed. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Right, we move on to item number nine, the update on Adult Social Care Financial Sustainability Programme, which is 6. We have Dawn Wakeling, who's the Executive Director of Adults and Health. Dawn? Thank you. Thank you. So, Councillor Mitra asked me to give a brief introduction, but obviously I'm looking forward to getting into discussion. So, my understanding is that you want us to – want me to talk about what we're doing to manage cost and demand in adult social care. But I am going to start by just putting – giving you a bit of context. So, this is a long-standing national issue. You will see numerous – and the average overspend at quarter one was four and a half million. So, there are lots of issues. The Care England say that adult social care, social care setting, obviously, but on average. So, there's a huge issue. In Barnet, the – I've been the DAS in Barnet for an awfully long time now, since the beginning of 2013, I think. And historically, we've had a pattern of our unit costs being below the national average. Since the pandemic, that has changed. And before the pandemic, we were also seeing a pattern where demand was going down. For example, those are continuing to grow. Some of the factors in the paper talk about the things that – The slide deck, which is an appendix, talks about those things. Ah, the other thing I haven't talked about is income. So, local authorities may charge for the provision of social care services. The rule of peer boroughs. So, we're very interested in that, and we're trying to understand what do we not charge for that others do, and what is the challenge in collecting that. Some of that might be related to the fact that we are a very, very strong performer in the responsibility of adult social care. So, we're also trying to address income. But then, if you go through the slide pack, there's the list of the projects that we do as words mean we can talk about that. And then, I thought it would just be helpful to talk a bit about what we see people home as quickly as possible, and a culture in the world of, you will go home in six weeks of care, and you need to go into a care home. And actually, we've been working both to manage home care hours, but also commission it. I hope I looked at you in a kindly and friendly manner, though. Thank you. The oral update I thought was very, very helpful. I think having told members the reassurance you can give. I believe that the rate of increase is slowing. So, we had a huge growth between 22-23 and 22 masked by the use of one-off funding, which was masked by, so the true scale of the pressure of the challenge in those years was masked, which was clear in the reports, but we used one-off resources. We used one-off resources to kind of cover the overspends. So, the bottom line out term looked better than it really was. We started 23-24 with 12 million unfunded pressures in adult social care, and we finished the year about 18 million overspends, so it kind of got worse. But actually, we knew there were pressures that were not funded by the time we started the year. So, that rate of challenge is definitely growing. I cannot reassure you that it will be on budget at the end of the year. I just can't. And it would not be, you know, it wouldn't be truthful. But we are seeing both. We're starting to see a downward trend in numbers for certain types of care, and we're starting to see a downward trend in Unicom for new people. And also, if you look across the piece for all packages, so for example, across all home care. So, those are the right things to be doing. You know, we are off the 150 million pounds net budget that is spent on adult social care. You've just described my job. I think there's a very full answer to that. I'm not sure I can do it justice in a short answer, but that is what we do every day. And we do it using some of the systems that you've talked about already. So, our risk system, but we have a quality assurance system. We have an authorization panel. We are constantly checking quality alongside price. And we have systems for monitoring people. We also, because we have a really, really good relationship with our providers, have really good communication systems. So, we know if things, you know, if there is a change in people. But we are constantly trying to balance those two things, as you say. Okay. Anybody else? Councillor Radford, but I'll go with Councillor Radford. Thank you. But clearly, your statutory responsibilities to provide that care is higher in the hierarchy than the responsibility to meet the budget. So, I think the Council has a statutory duty to set a balanced budget, and as a member of the Council's management team, I'm very aware of that. We have a statutory duty to meet an individual's case, and, you know, the situation nationally is an example of where two statutory duties are trying to be met at the same time, and it's really difficult. The, the, I can't, I would not try and say that one was higher than the other. One of the differences, though, is that the Care Act are general, but they are delivered through individuals. So, everybody has a care and support plan that links to their individual needs. So, so that adds a level of complexity around how you then discharge both of those statutory duties at the same time. Well, in terms of discharging your statutory duty around balanced budgets and keeping to our financial rules, whatever you call them, the Council, and then those needs have to be met. And that's an absolute legal duty. We are allowed to take our resources into account in terms of how we meet those needs. So, for example, pounds a week, then I, as the director, can say, we can, you know, we, we, we can choose the 1500 pounds a week one. So, we can do those kind of things. But if your needs can only be met by a care home, I can't not give you. I have three questions, but I don't know if any of them overlap. So, is it, if it's possible, can I give you all three and then, is that right? If you, if you would, because I'll forget them if you don't. I appreciate that. The first is in the slides deck, and thank you for putting those together. Talked about care packages for working age adults with the most complex learning disabilities. Just curious, if you're obviously still, still working and you've got complex learning difficulties. How, how do they get that much working age? Yes, working age adults. Sorry, working age adults. They might not be working. True. How do those complex learning difficulties, I suppose, get worse? And why has there been a particular spike in them? That's, I guess, the first one. The second is about, is demand arising from our ageing population linked to dementia and unhealthy life expectancy. Seems like the largest increase in unhealthy life expectancy, the sort of root cause of a lot of it is the obesity crisis, which drives a lot of the, thinking about prevention. Obviously, we don't have the money to double run trying to solve this stuff while also investing in prevention. But it seems to me things we could do around our planning laws around junk food and various other things within easy reach of people. Has there been a discussion about what other parts of the council could do in order to take into account? Right. It could stop the long term drivers of this budget, for example, around planning. And I suppose related to that also is the provision of enough housing with the city's living support or the right things in terms of, you know, sort of bars and bars and other things that people can use and be discharged back into. And the last thing, I promise, was around, in terms of the amount they get, it seems to me, based on from what I've heard, that there are some very complex need cases in hospitals that have been there for a long time. I've struggled, not necessarily balanced out with the rewards that people choose not to take them. Are you satisfied that there's enough supply, I suppose, those complex needs that are within our NHS people out of hospitals and appropriate care? That's it, I promise. OK, thanks. So I'm glad I wrote them down. So, you're right, working age adults, not necessarily working adults. Why has there been a growth? So, firstly, firstly, people are living longer. So medical, medical science keeps people living longer. And, and that's a good thing. That is a really good thing. But what we have is lots of people. So when you are, if you're a young person, if you're a child with complex disabilities, you will be transferred to adult social care. And you will, you will receive care and support from us until such time as you no longer need it. And those are people who are highly unlikely to have any assets that mean they would make a financial contribution towards the cost of their care. So why is it growing so much? So we think it's sort of just patterns of birth, medical advances. We also think that because we have such a brilliant education system, that's another reason for such a growth. So, so I cannot really give you a lot of evidence for this. But anecdotally, people believe that lots of people, lots of, Barnet is a family friendly borough. It's a great place to raise children. And we have great schools, including provision for people with special educational needs. So, and what's interesting is that we, we have seen the highest growth in the numbers of people with learning disabilities supported by the councils out of the council, by Barnet Council out of any London borough. So the average between 2015 and 2023, when we did percent, and for us it was 75%. So your second one about the aging population. So yes, multiple long-term conditions is a factor. Dementia is a big factor in Barnet. We have one of the highest dementia rates in London and nationally. So obesity is, is partly a factor. But it will be, often people might come into social care if they're, if they're older, because they've had a stroke or a fall. So they could have, you know, the health, the mobility problems that arise following stroke. So in terms of how we're tackling those wider determinants, we've obviously got health and wellbeing board through new extra care schemes, which are a bridge between living in your own home and residential care. And adult social care and the Barnet group work very closely together to find accommodation for people. And we, and we've, we've, we've, we've actually just nearly finished a whole new housing needs assessment for disabled to enable people to live more independently and therefore address care costs. And your last question was about complex discharge. So our performance on discharge has actually always been really, really strong. That's one of the reasons why we've spent so much money probably, but the national metric that people use since, since they changed the system design. This is a metric that is collected by acute hospitals and is collected on a patch basis, not on an individual basis, but we've always been one of the best in London. So I'm confident we have the supply and actually people don't wait long up. We can, we can arrange a home care package in 24 hours and our average time to find, actually very few people go into residential and nursing care permanently from hospital. But that's not really, because people will often get better when they've left hospital. They're putting them into a residue call. They call it. It's like a good bonus banquet from time to time. Bubbly personalities. The mayor of London's actually put in the panel opening. Right. I can let Dawn go. Excellent. The recommendations are on page 41. The committee note the update contained in appendix A. I think we can all agree. Services. This committee. Thank you. Thanks. Right. Item number 10, the corporate anti-fraud team half year report 2425. We've got event. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. So this report is just to note the outcomes of the corporate anti-fraud team for the first six months of the year. So the team in total have dealt with 858 investigations in the first six months, specifically broken down into corporate fraud. So that's either internal or external involved tenancy or blue badge fraud. They dealt with 83 cases that resulted in two criminal prosecutions, 18 prosecutions. We have a total fraud amount of half a million pounds. And two of the cases relate to adult direct payment fraud cases. And the number of ongoing cases is 50 in that area. Concessory travel fraud has increased significantly in the first six months. And the team dealt with them at the roadside. And all of those cases are getting referred to fraud. So there's been over a thousand percent increase in those types coming through, which is quite significant. So far, there's been ten prosecutions relating to the use of stolen, lost autism person badges. We've got nearly five thousand pounds issued in court fines and six thousand pounds awarded to the council in costs. We've issued 25 cautions with twelve hundred pounds recovers in costs. We've given eight warning letters and there's 33 cases relating to stolen and deceased persons badges that are awake at the end of the financial year. So that will be quite easy to come through. Just quickly moving on to the tenancy fraud side of the team. The number of cases dealt with were 324. That's resulted in one because they were making a profit from renting the county property out. And 2,700 pounds was awarded to the costs. The team issued three cautions. 18 properties have been recovered, which are social housing properties. And that has had an ongoing saving of £482,000. Discounts being offered to those council properties. Ten further applications have been denied, which relate to all sorts of things, such as homelessness. The team have 121 ongoing investigations. Part of the CAF team also deal with proceeds of crime investigations. And there's 17 that have been dealt with in the year with 15 ongoing. Two of those have been closed down as proceeds recovered. And the details are in appendix one of the report. If you mind me diving in first. A couple of things. Firstly, on the prosecution. We got off, didn't we? We'd have to share it with anyone else. Sorry, yes, that's correct. Contact the council. Because we don't always get everyone. So with the compensation amount, this is separate to the proceeds of crime. Way in which we can ask the court money. So the compensation was awarded directly to the council in. Sorry, in full. Because we made a case that the temporary accommodation cost council. I think that barnet homes. Chair, I think they might be able to say that we're not. If I understand correctly. You weren't asking about the. Split with the court, just. You're asking about cases where we split. Any funds with. With Harry? I'm just going to walk in the work. I'm just going to walk in here. But it's. In a way in which we can. We can ask the court money. So the compensation was awarded directly to the council in. Sorry, in full. Because we made a case that the temporary accommodation cost cases. of. Of it. So that barnet homes are. I think they might be able to say that. We're not. If I understand correctly, you weren't asking about the split with the court. You're saying about cases where we split. funds with with harrow like there is one case in the in this paper where it was about 120 grand or something it was split about 50 50 of proceeds so that's the proceeds of crime isn't it I think that just needs to be clarified of it I'm being informed that that might be a particular peculiarity of the individual case if I can just clarify the proceeds of crime is a very different process so that is where we go after basically illegal money so it's part of money laundering the courts go through a different process that comes under the proceeds of crime act which is different from some of the other acts that we might prosecute under so the fraud act or or posh for compensation is given to us by the courts and we get the whole amount a fine given by the court goes to the court so that's a slightly different scenario with the proceeds of crime however a confiscation amount is split three ways the courts take some legal back does that go to the calf team budget or does that go to Barnett home so it depends on the on the actual case itself some some things like Yvette mentioned a case for the COVID grants so the the application was for a 25,000 pound grant which was given and then we prosecuted and we got to the council but there is no mechanism for giving that money back to central government which is where the original but where that's that comes from that grant so it stays with the council with these with the housing ones it very much depends on the type of offense that we're looking at some of it might go back to the to the HRA where we can pay for or compensate for some of the temporary accommodation costs but others will depending on again the offense comes into the cafe thank you so you've got a few ongoing investigations into then one low priority and I'm kind of wondering is is that a breach of an employment contract or both it came depending on the circumstances so you'll find a lot of this is through temporary contracts and there's not necessarily a stipulation of how many hours you'll work but where the offense comes in where the fraud act will probably kick in is where you have a time sheet for that submitted to barn and I worked on Tuesday from nine o'clock in six o'clock in the evening and then they will also submit the same time sheet to maybe harrow for that same time period and clearly they can't work at both so that's a that that would be a section two fraud act defense and that's what we would look at there are other elements of polygamous working where you might have somebody working for barnet from nine till three and then from three till eight they may work for somebody else so there's a bit of a fine line and the investigation has to really try to understand what work they were doing during that pin the period of hours worked the barnet as opposed to the hours worked for another local authority so they can get quite complicated with the actual investigation and but we try to we try to evidence in such a way that polygamous working is for two different areas which is clearly a fraud act defense yeah I mean if if it is it is right and and you're the authority on that it's just it's all it is obviously a conduct issue between employer and employee I just I'm just surprised it's also a fraud as well I mean you know rightly so obviously but presumably it is because this is a fraud against the public purse to just add to that I assume I assume that barnet employment contract states that and if we can't work at any other company as standard for temporary working it's it's slightly different because potentially you can work for four hours and claim that and work another four hours for another local authority so it's not as clear-cut but what we have introduced is a declaration so that when people you know if they're going to do that they declare to us that they were also working for another local authority and then there is some assurance around them telling us that they're doing that whether or not time overlaps is about really the monitoring of I have two questions which might not have anything to do with you but I'll ask them and then you can either pretend to answer them or if it is anyway I'll throw them out there anyway in my world there's two main issues that have cropped up lately which I don't know whether you touch on one is people operating businesses out of car park and cracking down on that the second thing which might be more of a national thing we've had quite a long few shops closing and then reopening with remarkably similar names with similar last names on companies house and therefore people questioning the the viability or the reasonableness whether they're doing what they claim they're doing I was wondering what if many of our roles are in terms of either flagging investigating reporting finding poly something working which is something good any of that stuff on those two topics I'd love to hear more it it doesn't fall within the room of the CAF team because it's not directly against the public purse at Barnet so that that's kind of that's the boundary in which we work in well depending what the business is so if if they're actually scamming people in the car parks then that becomes it's a bit of a mix between possibly trading standards but the police so again it's not it's not something where the council is potentially losing their public funds from it may be income is not coming into us because the time is taking place but that would then be a scam and that's when we would make a decision so again if it myself would discuss that but probably with the likes of trading standards and the police to see who is the best agency to deal with it yeah no I I very much know what you're talking about because I have a very similar case in my ward uh right I don't see anyone else has any questions on this report so I will take us to the recommendations on page 57 which is that Garms note the comment note and comment on the work of the corporate anti-fraud team referred to in the car half year report for 24 25 I take that as agreed it's agreed thank you very much all right uh go on to item number 11 the internal order exception recommendations report and q2 progress report oh first of july 24 the 30th of september 20 24 um I I I'd like to introduce to our committee uh adam calmanson who is our new head of internal audit yeah he's he's coming to replace caroline we we we said when caroline left that she was irreplaceable but we we didn't really mean it we think you'll be great she left us she left us i'm not over it so take it away welcome well thanks thanks very much for the introduction chair and uh yeah it was great to be here and caroline is still at the council which is good uh uh but yes thank you and look forward to working with you all um so this is the internal audit q2 progress uh report updating on delivery of the 24 25 internal audit plan and the follow-up work um that was undertaken in the period uh in uh in the period uh the service completed six reviews and at the end of quarter two delivered 53 of our internal audit program uh there were no no assurance or limited assurance reports issued in this quarter uh and we undertook uh follow-up work on um 42 uh follow-up actions uh 33 high and nine medium priority um 31 of which were closed and we just didn't close off a further item which was actually um i think one thing talked about was we're aware that the follow-up of implementation continues to track below target which is 90 so looking information in the report uh you can't i'll just take a list who who has questions just counselor prager then thank you thanks chair i think i'm in the correct report where we have a number of items listed under the uniform system and some incorrect data that's that was flagged there um could we get just a brief introduction to how that data is being input and why there are so many instances of incorrect data in the system i think that i'd probably need to take that one away if that's okay it's related to a report that was um in implemented a while ago but um the one item that i mentioned that was uh flagged as red uh we've looked at um has been implemented ultimately as an action so yeah that that is is it on is that one item um that is flagged as red but there are a number of other items also in this report which also linked list linked to the uniform system so i would just i would assume the uniform being the one red item it would be something that we'd have something from being able to be provided with some information on it just because there are a number of items in this list that all relate incorrect information on the system so just trying to understand is that manual error is there an issue with the system that needs to be resolved from a technical side like these are the basics of just understanding where what what the issues are with that have been uncovered uh yeah um i think uh that's probably yeah i will probably have to come back to you on that i'm afraid i don't have the uh the answer i think we'll note this as an action point and then if you have follow-up questions once it's circulated to you that the governance audit risk management and standards committee note the general work completed today on the internal audit q2 report first of july 24 to 30 september 24 number two that the governance audit risk management and standards committee note the work completed today on schools within the internal audit q2 report told you in the call over this might be a long session but apparently not everyone right uh uh we move on to item number 12 treasury management media performance update q2 24 20 and joining us online you want to introduce the item yeah thank you chair so i'll introduce the report and then um kevin i'll field any questions so the report gives an overview of treasury management activity through the second quarter of the year um covering sort of investment and borrowing activity um between july and september and there's more um more depth given within the appendix so investment balances fell through the quarter um we had made redemptions from money market funds to meet expenditure and then had some gilts and treasury bills mature um as they were held for for specifically for the brent cross plot one scheme so as they matured they were then on lent with the uh a small remainder being reinvested with the debt management office um boring increased by 65 million pounds as um two new loans were taken in line with the the council's capital plans and in response to uh cash levels being projected to to approach the the minimum 45 million pound liquidity buffer um planned capital expenditure for 24 25 has fallen between the july and september capital program updates the cabinet which include um 65 million pounds of of less borrowing projected to be required for 24 24 25 however the um overall capital expenditure to be financed by borrowing for the program as a whole um has only fallen by uh 1.5 million pounds so that suggests it's a reprofiling of when the borrowing will be taken through the the program rather than an overall um reduction uh the capital program will require further borrowing to be delivered this year um and there's also 85 million pounds of loans that the council has to refinance in the final quarter of this year um around those those loans that will be required so consideration will need to be given to the the timing and the structure of of those loans um rate forecasts from the council's treasury advisors which have suggested a falling rate environment have informed the recent strategy pursued of deferring borrowing as long as possible while rates remain elevated we have seen some um some rate reductions over the the second quarter of the year however um it's worth noting that following the uh the chancellor's recent budget we saw pwlp borrowing rates um rise around half a percent across all loan durations um so the the treasury report updating for quarter three will include commentary on updated rate forecasts from our advisors and um those updated forecasts along with uh revised capital program data that's reported to cabinet will then inform future uh treasury projections uh based on the current rate forecasts and capital expenditure expectations the impact uh the impact of the the implicit borrowing required to finance the capital program is projected to lead to uh seven million pounds overspend on the capital financing budget and uh the ratio of financing costs as a proportion of net revenue is projected to increase and remain at elevated levels with the life of the capital program so this ratio was um under seven percent in 23 24 this year that's projected to rise to 11 and then 12 next year and then remains above 11 through to 28 29 and then uh finally the the treasury teams identified several key strategic priorities in response to findings from a recent internal audit report and uh this this report provides comment on the progress towards achieving those priorities um and provides new measures for uh assessing their um effective implementation and i think that that covers this and the bulk of the report so welcome any questions before we uh go to questions thank you very much jerry well um that's a good exposition of what's in the paper um there's not a huge amounts of good news in here i don't suppose you would expect us to be providing with any um a couple of slight chinks of of of of light for you is that we are basing those borrowing forecasts on the capital program jerry mentioned this on spending to its full i don't think it will um so that may help us slightly there's no doubt in my mind we're going to need to to continue to borrow more now when this came to you previously and that david was still with us and we're highlighting the situation in relation to the capital financing overspend which is a real challenge for the organization um in the budget paper and i know i'm stretching slightly into cabinet does and the budget but i think it's important context for you that um in the budget paper that you'll see there is a significant growth item to increase our capital financing budget which needs to happen because most of this stuff is baked in um so i just wanted to assure you of that i also wanted to assure you that um my my judgment is that the teams have improved processes uh quite considerably since the internal audit report was trying to address those so i hope you'll find that part of the report helpful um as i say you know i'm not addressing things up we've got a challenge around this cashflow forecasting is better uh not yet much improved um from in the few months that i've been here since last february um and i think you can see that there's a lot of information being collated and presented to you that doesn't mean that there aren't none for radford i'm the only person bidding at the auction that means i get to take it all home uh two things i suppose firstly i suppose uh well done jag group on a very good david spreckley impression a very very good job thank you in terms of team composition uh do we know when we might hire someone to replace david and considering that the job has let's say got more complex and challenging in light of you know it used to be i'm maybe simplifying but you have cash reserves you put them in a money market account and happy days right now it's a little bit more complex than that do you think are you confident that we can get someone who is very good at this job for the amount that we can pay who will be able to sort of take on what we need to do in terms of the skills uh and i've got a second my blood pause there come back um on easy part i'm no i'm not confident that i'll find somebody of the right level with the right skills at this moment in time um what are we going to do about baby's departure which is a gap no question i'm not going to hide that either um that group and a couple of other colleagues are stepping up to the plate we've done a slight restructure in the team uh i'm using one of the directors now to to provide um some some assistance from them so from an objective perspective we're going to do that and as you'll know that my tenure here is is uh shortish term to herself give an opportunity for months now january time um so i put in place a temporary arrangement around that and um at the moment i'm quite i'm quite pleased with that it's a good impression of ds their group but that solution given where we are thank you and yeah i'm very conscious of the fact that a the wrong hire can be much more costly in the long term than waiting a bit longer so appreciate that uh and then in 1.8 it says the report comments on the council's operation boundary and authorized limits and suggest that in order for these limits to be a better measure of sustainability that they should be linked to the capital financing budget within the median term financial strategy i think we've had a few discussions i think we're largely in agreement about the need to both have a budget for capital financing and prioritize within it but also internalize the costs that it's likely to have taken into account from borrowing to meet those projects when assessing the environments of this is there anything else other than those when we look at 1.8 what else might i be missing other than those two things in terms of linking them together they're the key things in in my judgment um i think the other thing that we need to do is be very clear and i think through our capital strategy board that we have within the council though it's only an officer board and doesn't make decisions that's a matter for the cabinet and what goes into capital program of course um we are saying now and requiring all projects that come forward for uh review that board but if executive executive executive and their cmt because i've made that point very clearly um so i think that's the only one and i don't think it's embedded yet but um questions coming so can we turn to the recommendations from pay recommendation on page 102 uh that the committee notes the tried cut across the council's operations and so require focus across finance and service areas are not limited to actions taken that can be taken by the team is that noted thank you that's noted lovely right uh moving on to item 13 the 2023 slash four interim audit findings report which on page 120 we're going to go straight through and i think you're joined by ajay and george i think it's your first time um thank you chair um and good evening members so this is our interim audit findings report and i think it's important important before aj takes us through some of the key findings to look at the context here um obviously um your prior year audits for several years haven't been audited and so when we commenced the audit of um of the 23 of the 23 4 accounts in july we were faced with a start point whereby the opening balances the opening balances were going to be disclaimed uh for that year and that was our starting premise and so what we've tried so that would always be reflected in your audit opinion for 23 4 regardless of any other factors so what we've done is worked with the council uh since july um going through particularly focusing on income and expenditure items and and of course closing balances because there's nothing we could do about the opening balances in reality so we have spent uh you know since july and going through this and have been well supported by colleagues in the finance department and there was a theoretical possibility that um all of those uh tests all of that testing and everything we've done on it had all had all worked out fine and it was no problems and we would have been left with the only issue of the opening balances and the implications of that um that obviously hasn't worked out to be the case despite the um uh support of colleagues of the finance department and obviously reflects the fact the council haven't had a level of detailed audit in in the last few years and of course auditing standards change various other things change and and as it's quite difficult and what we've got to is that we where we will end up is because there are a number of significant issues that in in isolation if we forget about backstops etc and about opening balances themselves might have led to to qualification of the audit opinion but our attack our approach to that is rather than doing the backs doing a disclaimer because of opening balances and a whole series of additional potential qualifications what we are aiming to what we will do is to do a backstop uh disclaimer for 23 4 reflecting some of the issues that we've bottomed out as being you know particularly wrong or not supported um and and the reality is we need to then build up a process that takes us into 24 5 and aims to move on from from from this report in terms of levels of assurance we can give i mean clearly um the upside of what we've done is we've been able to complete a number of sections we've done a lot of testing in a whole range of areas um and some of that testing has been successful in in terms of our samples uh passing um so so we've got to a better position than we we started with in terms of we've been able to give members a very detailed report as you'll see but clearly in terms of the outcome of the audit the outcome of the audit will be a disclaimed audit now to put that into some form of context um we've inherited a whole series of uh of all its under the new psaa contract uh and the reality is that and the majority of those uh will be disclaimed for for the 22 3 and earlier with the exception of a couple small bodies and sort of fire authorities and things like that all of the larger units we've taken on um in reality it's going to be a long journey to recovery actually by the barnet's position i mean it may feel from this report not particularly positive but actually compared to others in terms of the amount of testing we've been able sorry first of all counts have been produced on time working papers have been provided and we've done a testing that's actually a lot a lot better than we've achieved at some other places so it's the beginning of a journey um rather than the end and it will take some time to recover the position and i know that nationally uh the neo the frc and others are looking at you know what what the longer term solution might be on on that but in the meantime this is where we are um i'll now hand over to aj who just take you through the key findings from the audit and obviously we'll then go back to to members questions thank you paul okay i could just make a quick comment before aj comes in um i just want to address the members actually because i think what paul has said is really important in terms of expectation setting and and uh what you need to understand in relation to the fact that we are not going to get anything other than a disclaimer before and paul's explain the context i just wanted to make sure everybody understood that before we get into the detail of this year and i'm grateful for the way paul has explained that and given the positives thank you thank you thanks paul good evening chair good evening members um so we've been working with the finance team for about four and a half months to cover the work around next time loaded for 2324 um and as paul mentioned we've received really positive engagement from the finance team and that has really helped us complete a lot of work although we will be disclaiming however it's it's fair to mention that the engagement of the finance team has been really appreciated our report is on the page on page 127 of the papers pack uh the report broadly talks about the work we've done so far it has details of the work where we have concluded um along with the findings and also on areas of focus and significant risk where we have not concluded it has details of the work done as as of now um it also has a list of recommendations and action plan that we've recommended to the management where the management have also given us responses i take the report as i read um there are a few things that i will give you a summary of which are the key sort of findings from the work we've done so far and then i will take and pause to any questions so we've identified about eight audit misstatements which have been omitted by the management we've also identified a couple of uh factual errors and two extrapolated errors these are unadjusted errors these are below our headland materiality therefore management have not adjusted for them we've also identified 12 control findings three of them are high risks and these three i want to just briefly touch upon before i pause for questions um during the audit we identified that the valuation process of property plant and equipment needs robust controls in place uh we were not able to verify the size of the land and building uh some of the inputs used by the valuers would not support it so there's a a evidence issue here which can definitely be resolved for next year when we also investigated work on cash and cash equivalents we identified that the cash held within the ledger of the council does not align with the cash held at schools this is a problem which is a cumulative problem we have been speaking to the management on how to resolve it the best way to resolve it is to go back to a point in time when cash held by schools aligns with the cash held by the council this is ongoing at the moment we have received some responses however have not been able to conclude on it as of now the third issue is the pensions contribution issue there have been some transactions between the pension fund fund and the council um and this has happened before we were appointed as orders and covers the period of 2021 until 22 23. um these transactions uh have been made where the council has made contributions to pension fund and have received these additional contributions as cash for two years however not received any cash for 22 23 we are still working with the council to assess the lawfulness and the validity of these transactions therefore we are not able to conclude on this these were the key findings and i'll stop any questions if there are any this is a question where i just confess i don't quite understand something what you explain it like you're explaining to a pet labrador or something uh on the cash balances held by the council the cash balance is held by the school you just explain sort of i don't know how do we discover what the cash balance is held by the schools are and therefore how one would normally reconcile them i guess and also i presume i presume i know but can you explain what the cash balances were for presumably so typically you would to to assess the cash balance you hold as for the council typically you will take what is in the bank and you will check what is in the cash book you will try to reconcile the balance and then once you've reconciled it you come up with a cash balance so this reconciliation process does not happen at the council's ledger the the schools also maintain a register the schools maintain all the income expenditure and the cash book and they do reconcile it and they then reconcile it with with what is in the bank uh that balance at school is different to the balance you have it reported the council has sorry reported the financial statement and that's why it's different now the scale of that uh we don't know that yet because we are still investigating and bomb all of that if not i want to add a bit okay so um i think it was a good explanation aj i'm not saying it wasn't um what i would say to you is that this is something that we really shouldn't have got wrong um and it needs correcting and we're on it now um but i think and this is not this is not a blame point but i think had we had discrepancy we find out what it is i mean so i hope the labrador understands i guess the follow-up question is what does so again if i was sending a large amount of money to someone i'd normally get them to sign an agreement saying do you agree you've received x i'm sending you x two people sign happy days whatever uh is that what best practice looks like were we just sending them money and then they were they put or how why you know i guess normally there's some reconciliation at this point right isn't this like pretty automatable like if you send something to a bank account associated with a school's name and the school's name automatically populates kind of thing i mean this seems like something which surely we've got rid of this theoretically it should but schools are operating on a different system and they might choose their own systems at school level all this really yeah yeah yeah i theoretically yes but we're not in that position at the moment because it's just simple how would we get there though i mean don't we do quite a lot of us i mean certainly primary schools we do we do quite a lot of the school admin stuff anyway are you asking how would we get to an automated i think i'd need to reflect on that and think about the straightforward everything's up to date we've done we confident we work it's just about it's just about ensuring that what all the council's records show is the same as what the school's records show uh property plant and equipment not not knowing what the floor area rental agreement information uh presumably if we were part of the rental agreement information that would be someone background as well as paul has said to a number of places that the rules have changed around this so again this is not excuses around you know the fact that we've not been audited with and and signed off by a bit because we're not going to have them um but it's again it's going to be part of this improvement journey and um the worry is that it might cost us a bit more in terms of uh evaluation team's capacity to uh okay is the worry not that we don't have accurate data potentially because there's that missed oversight you mentioned that the worry is that it might cost us a bit more to get to where we want to be isn't really the worry that we might not know what the actual numbers are uh balance for me on that that's also obviously very important but with the council's financial position at the moment um we're looking at every penny that's all i was referring to there and these are um the friends might not agree with this but you know floor areas valuation in the accounts um without putting too much on this before this requirement was there there'll be a value in the accounts that was derived another way a much simpler way and go and help me out with this and tell me say what i'm trying to say um so um probably about four probably if we go back and obviously i've been doing all it for a long time um the the valuation of things like schools and and offices um was not an important issue because ultimately those are are not things that impact directly on um general funds or hra that they just because of the way that local authority accounting works they're not they're not direct impact issues um changes in accounting standards and changing the auditing standards have meant that because they are the largest number in your accounts and they have estimates and they require judgment in this case value of judgment then the auditor is required to do significant amounts of work in those areas and part of that process is to uh to consider evidence around rental agreements leases floor areas for those uh those assets because it's the floor area times the bcis index that derives the value and in this particular case when when the audit team probed particular examples that they were asking about that data wasn't available and therefore we couldn't make any conclusion that those values were correct i'm sorry just to follow up on that and i'm not actually sure who this question is directed at but from a from a risk standpoint and this is a bit off piece to where the report was headed if we don't have accurate valuations potentially of the properties that we are in especially considering the huge increase in property prices over the last let's call it decade um is there is there a risk that we we are very much underinsured um because presumably for insurance purposes we need fairly accurate um valuations of properties and if they are underinsured and there was to be a complete uh loss on a property that could have a huge impact on the council's finances not and it's not just a number on the accounts but it but it has real life ramifications um i think um i think um i don't think that buildings are underinsured and you can necessarily draw from this this is in the buildings are underinsured um uh we we have information on all of our buildings and we have an insurance uh assessor and part of our um work on that it ensures hopefully that the value is right i i i wouldn't necessarily draw that conclusion from these uh queries in relation to you know rental agreements and for areas uh it's potentially the case but i don't think it is uh and your other point about importance of of having the values right yes but it is important but as paul said there's not a direct here on on the general as it would be different in a business but i think you know let us let us reflect on the point as well because it's it's well made i'm going to go final comment to councillor thank you i appreciate it so um i appreciate the work that's that's that's got into this and also the forward-looking plan to fix all this which is very reassuring um with the pension contribution point that happened under a uh with a previous chair a previous pension officer i don't think any of the people who maybe were responsible or could be held responsible are here cash and cash equivalents property parliamentary equipment i don't know but in terms of whether it's capital on the pension side whether it's not having any of any of this data it seems like historic lack of data management has led to a current day costs in terms of these gentlemen's time and other things and all the rest of it it's very frustrating so while sort of i take actually more than face value that we are going to do lots about it which i'm grateful for and they're going to be a bit more belt and braces about all this stuff how how these people might be held accountable for lack of oversight here because it seems like the common thread or all this is a lack of actually paying attention to data management and actually having the right records and that goes across whether it's outsourced partners or internally so in terms of the accountability piece just information about what has happened in the past you can take action from them i think it's slightly early days to work out difficult um but for our perspective i think we're wasting a very early phase of the standing and seriously across the council we've had substantial discussions about i i i appreciate that i appreciate it certainly days maybe i could table it but the sentiment will be taken on board as a ongoing i'm sure the sentiment floats around the room and illuminates itself uh oh one final comment from richard i want to make a sort of philosophical point um and supportive given's point earlier i think that having shared the frustration of this audit committee about the state the external audit over the last not having an audit ologies have been very significant that things have crept in would have been picked up at audit and would have been dealt with and we're now normal in less than two three four years that are really back to the state that they ought to be in so i just thought i'd make that point really that that's how it is i've been on this committee but i've certainly been here for i've been here for 10 years and i've used to sub regularly before then um ability to properly process and manage data i mean go back to what happens with the pension pension management system these are things that have tinny importance and respect it deserves to be you know we we can't allow ourselves to get into position where routine running of business i think that's a reassurance that we've been provided by the external audit that the council does understand those problems it's going to work very hard to tackle them i i hope it i genuinely hope it's not for a four-year journey to sort everything i'm sure we can thank our external auditor for all their excellent hard work thank you uh exactly thank you right uh item 14 member development program 2022 to 26 updates okay thank you chair um this is a six six monthly update on the progress of the member development program 2022 to 2026 um they detail sessions that have been delivered in appendix pia sessions of plans some may have been delivered since publication of the agenda um we do have a member development steering group with representatives from both parties the group leaders the whip fiscal assistance inform our approach um the period of time that we're in now it's kind of we're towards the end of the following on from that um so it's really for the committee to to note the the update there is a bit of a focus on finance in the coming period um particularly upskilling members of self been elected in a bio election uh historically it's been very difficult to give new members support they haven't been elected with everyone else i think note that councillor baker who is the newest member i think we count councillor zincon as a returning member to be perfectly honest well he did lose it was it was very funny but he's come back um but you know i i i note from the list that councillor baker has already done two bits of training and it's a really good attitude to this i have raised with andrew the issue that some members including myself have really struggled to access but we can all merrily enjoy um training sessions uh do members have any comments i saw councillor rose and that's around uh overview and scrutiny members and scrutiny subcommittees are having finance training perhaps we could ask the member development steering group to also consider adding goms and pensions committees to that list given the complex issues which we are dealing with at the moment um potential level of scrutiny that we're able to do yeah of course we can feed that back to the member development steering group is this committee that kind of mandates what is mandatory training um and enforcement of mandatory training as officers have no role in enforcing that we just report as you can see in this report compliance with it but certainly that's something we'll recommend uh via this committee to them i've just given to you lots of training already you might find a revolt uh but yes uh on in terms of uh the compulsory training obviously the code of conduct register of interests 83 percent have done it what happens if people just don't ever do it what are the consequences apart is that is that is that is that what i have received an email declare your interest as a group whip yes yes sorry yes exactly what can i do so what can we do um as i just alluded to the sanction is is through the group um i mean if you're if you could through your group meetings have something on the mandatory training um but ultimately the sanction is through the group so it's whatever whatever your group structure is um for certain things like planning and licensing we wouldn't allow members to sit on those committees there's there's two elements of that so it's being the first citizen of the borough job for the incumbent of course it is it's a vital role but also uh for for mayors chairing the council the council meeting overwhelming so uh we like to give them around that i don't know about that um no intention of being well behaved at the forecast right uh thank you very much andrea i don't think there are any more questions so we go to the recommendations on page 190 number one that committee notes that the sessions delivered since march 2024 appendix a and provides feedback on these if any number two committee note and comment on the forward plan remember development sessions are set out in appendix b is that agreed right item 15 the committee forward work program apologies for me i i've had to move a number of dates so i have to hold my hands up there and apologize to everybody um we have got a very very short one hour meeting on the 12th of december for osc to discuss an adequate amount of time um and we've moved uh two dates around next year 29th of january and the 21st of may uh so i hope those are all the members diaries now okay um if you want to add anything to the agenda or on there then let me know uh item 16 any other items the chair decides are urgent nothing uh today thank you thank you very much everybody thank you good night