The Leicester Council Governance and Audit Committee met on 17 September 2025, to discuss the annual procurement report, complaints, and internal audit progress. The committee reviewed the Procurement Annual Report 2024/25, the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman Complaints & Corporate Complaints 2024/25, and the Internal Audit Plan Update 2025/26, and provided comments for consideration. The committee also noted the progress on actions agreed at the previous meeting.

Procurement Annual Report

The committee reviewed the Annual Procurement Report 2024-25, which provides an overview of the council's procurement activities and compliance with contract procedure rules. During 2024-25, the council completed 203 procurements through its procurement teams, with an estimated total value of £279,759,017.26 over the contracts' lifetimes.

The report also included a summary of waivers granted during the year. Izabela Skowronek, Head of Procurement, noted that there had been an increase in the value and number of waivers during 2024-25, but that this should not be interpreted solely as a decline in compliance. She stated that the increase was a result of:

• The introduction of the Strategic Procurement Panel in November 2023, which led to increased detection of historical non-compliance.
• Improved control mechanisms, whereby purchase orders are matched against contract data before being approved.
• Spend review meetings between finance and procurement, where spend data is matched against awarded contract information and any instances of spend without a contract in place are investigated.
• The overall strict application of the rules, meaning even a relatively small deviation requires approval via a waiver.

The report noted that a single waiver of £32.5m accounted for nearly 60% of the overall waiver value, due to essential home care social care services requiring an existing contract extension via waiver to ensure continuity, pending a new procurement.

The committee was informed that the council publishes its annual Procurement Plan for 2025-26 on the council's Open Data website and that under the new Procurement Act, the council is also required to publish an annual procurement pipeline, showing contracts valued at £2m and above that are to be procured in the next 18 months.

Complaints Performance and Service Improvement

The committee reviewed the Annual Complaints Report Audit and Governance, which provides an overview of the complaints received by the council and the actions taken to address them.

The report noted that the council received 1,559 formal complaints from customers in relation to contact and service delivery during 2024/25. Of these, 664 (43%) were Housing Ombudsman related matters and 895 (57%) were Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman related matters.

The council aims to investigate and respond to all stage 1 complaints within 10 working days, or by the agreed extended deadline. For stage 1 complaints dealt with in 2024/25, 76.28% of these were responded to within the deadline. For Housing Ombudsman complaints, the council aims to have investigated and responded to these complaints within 20 working days, or by the agreed deadline. For stage 2 complaints dealt with in 2024/25, 79.3% of these were responded to within the deadline.

The report also provided an overview of the complaints investigated by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and the Housing Ombudsman. Between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman dealt with 118 complaints in relation to the council, of which 23 were taken forward for investigation and 17 were upheld in favour of the complainant. The Housing Ombudsman published the outcome of 4 investigations for 2024/25, with 1 case finding no maladministration.

The report included a self-assessment against the Housing Ombudsman's Complaint Handling Code¹, and identified actions required, including:

• Creating the stage 2 process for Local Government and Social Care complaints
• Developing a new IT complaints management system
• Undertaking a review of the Complaints Policy
• Reviewing information published on the website in relation to complaints
• Undertaking a review of staffing resources required to manage the complaints process
• Developing enhanced reporting on complaints to monitor themes and trends, to include improving the internal governance of complaints reporting
• Developing a more effective process to learn from complaints, to include the identification of service improvements required as a result of complaints and a tracking system to ensure these are completed.
• Undertaking a review of responses sent following an investigation of a complaint to ensure these are comprehensive
• Reviewing the Vexatious Complaints Policy
• Improving the internal governance of complaints reporting
• Deliver complaints training to staff

Internal Audit Plan Update

The committee reviewed the Internal Audit Plan Update 2025/26, which provides an update on the delivery of the internal audit work programme for 2025/26. Connor Munro, Assistant Director Audit Assurance (Veritau), presented the report, which included a summary of completed work, work currently in progress, and work currently scheduled for the remainder of the year. It also reported on outcomes from the follow-up of actions agreed in previous audit reports.

The report noted that five audits have been finalised and two audits have reached draft report stage since the last report to the committee. 10 audits are in progress at the time of reporting, and background planning has begun on an additional eight audits.

The report included a summary of critical and significant findings from the five completed audits, including an audit of procurement compliance, which identified a significant finding relating to waivers and exemptions. The audit found that there was a 79% increase in the use of waivers between 2023/24 and 2024/25, with 61 waivers required in 2024/25. A review of a sample of waivers identified instances where waivers had been granted due to a lack of forward planning, had been granted after the contract had been awarded, and had been granted without obtaining approval from legal.

The agreed action was that quarterly reporting on the number of, and reason for, waivers and exemptions is now being completed, with the report to include details by directorate by 31 October 2025.

The report also included a summary of the current status of follow-up activity, which showed that 12 of the 13 actions followed up so far this year have been satisfactorily implemented.

Action Tracker

The committee noted progress on actions agreed at the previous meeting, as detailed in the Action Tracking - 17 September 2025.

The committee was reminded that at the meeting held on 23 June 2025, regarding the Contract Procedure Rules, the committee asked the Executive to have consideration and additional emphasis on engagement with local suppliers.

The committee was also reminded that at the meeting held on 14 July 2025, regarding the Draft Statement of Accounts and Annual Governance Statement 2024/25, consideration should be given to updating the narrative statement to separately show the investment in children's homes from schools.