Agenda and draft minutes

To receive any apologies for absence

Apologies were received from Mark Brookes, Usman Mohammed attended in his place.

To receive any declarations of interest

A member with a disclosable pecuniary interest or a personal interest in a matter who attends a meeting of the authority at which the matter is considered -

(i)            must disclose the interest at the start of the meeting or when the interest becomes apparent

and, if the interest is a disclosable pecuniary interest, or a personal interest which is also prejudicial

(ii)        may not participate in any discussion or vote on the matter (and must withdraw to the public seating area) unless they have been granted a dispensation.

A member who discloses at a meeting a disclosable pecuniary interest which is not registered in the Members’ Register of Interests, or is not the subject of a pending notification, must notify the Monitoring Officer of the interest within 28 days of the disclosure.

Disclosable pecuniary interests, personal and prejudicial interests are defined in Part 2 of the Code of Conduct For Members

[If a member is in any doubt as to whether they have an interest which should be declared they should seek the advice of the Monitoring Officer before the start of the meeting]

There were no Declarations of Interest.

To confirm the minutes of the previous meeting and consider the actions

The Minutes of the previous meeting held on 24 June 2020 were review and agreed

An opportunity for members of the public to make statements and ask questions in accordance with the rules as to Public Participation

There was no public Participation.

Presented by Usman Mohammed.

RIPA - Regulation of Investigatory powers Act.

Investigations under this act permit the Council to utilise covert surveillance for the purposes of preventing and detecting crime.  There are 2 types of Authorisation generally used by the Council

·        Use of a covert Human intelligence source

·        Directed surveillance

In order to utilise these, the Council must gain authorisation from the court and demonstrate these authorisations are necessary, proportionate and in accordance with the law.

The authorisations themselves are regulated by the regulation of Investigatory powers Act,

The Covert Surveillance and property interference code 2018 along with the corporate policy govern the covert surveillance use, copies of both are included in the papers for this meeting.

In 2018 the RIPA commissioner’s office inspected the Council, they concluded that there is in place a coherent process for the management of surveillance and covert human intelligent sources supported by a comprehensive corporate policy document.

There were some recommendation made following that report hence the reason for bring this  to the Audit Committees attention, not only to highlight the recommendations but also to show how these have been addressed and seek the Committees authorisation and support.

The brief overview of the recommendations are as follows:

·        Amendments to the wording of the Corporate Policy

·        Where a covert Human intelligence source is used there must be both a handler and a controller in place for their welfare as well as a risk assessment which needs to be signed off by an authorised officer.

·        Training for relevant officers.

·        Reporting to the relevant Members to provide transparency.  This will be in the form of an annual detailing the number of authorisations obtained and what kind of intelligence has been gather through these operations. 

Between 1 April 2019 – 31 March 2020 there were no covert human intelligence sources used however 3 applications were made to the court for directed surveillance (covert cameras) all of which were granted. All of these resulted in prosecutions.

Cllr Townsend has no concerns with the content of the report however he questions whether under the terms of reference the Audit committee are able to approve policies.

Cllr Birnie agrees with Cllr Townsend and feels the annual report should be submitted to an OSC meeting.

Cllr Chapman also agrees with the comments.

N.Howcutt clarifies that this is more about the Audit Committee overseeing controls and assurances rather than approving policy. The reason this paper has been submitted to the Audit Committee is ensure they are happy with the proposals which have been put into place around those controls and assurances.  In terms of the performance of RIPA Cllr Birnie is correct, it is often reported to OSC as often as the chair requires.

 Cllr Symington would like clarification regarding the use of directional surveillance and the fact it should be use with a threshed hold of 6 months in prison, she feels this is not proportional for the fly tipping convictions which have been previously mentioned.

Cllr Symington feels the report should  ...  view the full minutes text for item 15.

Fiona Jump presented

This report is submitted to the Audit Committee as there have been several changes since the provisional outturn report was presented to Cabinet in May. Therese are largely technical adjustments.

James Deane would like to bring to the Committees attention that there is one outstanding item on the accounts which is the pension evaluations, this isn’t something that DBC is in control of, the valuation administration of the council pension scheme is undertaken by HCC and they are experiences some delays with their auditors EY. 

Fiona Jump Presented.

The purpose of this document is to summarise the Councils financial position for the year, to provide assurance for both the strength of DBCs financial position and the way in which we operate.

The document is made up of a number of different financial statements supported by a narrative report the purpose of which is to give more information around what the financial statements are showing, plus explanatory notes which go in to much more detail about the figures presented.

The main statements:

1.      Comprehensive Income and expenditure statement – to show the net cost of the councils services and how those costs have been supported by funding sources such as grants, business rates and council tax income.

               Statement for 2019 shows a net gain to the Council of £128M

2.      Movement in Reserve statement – to show the movement throughout the year on different reserves that are held by the council. The Balance sheet also shows DBCs finical position for the year.

              This year the document shows the net worth of the council is just over £1b.

3.      Cash Flow – shows the movement in the Councils cash and cash equivalent position during the year. There has been a net cash inflow of £4.9m.

The audit findings report summaries the work coming out of the audit so far, it is substantially complete.

The date from receiving accounts was pushed back this year to the end of August with the latest date for auditing pushed back to the end of November, however the finance team were able to provide the accounts at the end of June as originally planned.

The areas still to complete are around prior period adjustments, this is due to the fact GT have to go through an internal review with their technical team on those and that is still ongoing.

In terms of pensions, GT cannot sign off on the accounts until they have received the assurance letter from EY.

Due to the pandemic all work has been undertaken remotely, this has meant things have taken a little longer while everyone got use to the new way of working. 

Cllr Birnie would like to know where the £2.4M overspend in the general fund has come from and if the committee should be concerned.

N.Howcutt explains this is mainly linked to the Berkhamsted Multi Story car park, this is an isolated issue related to a project that encountered significant problems.

Cllr Birnie wold like to know what the dacorum development reserve is for.

N.Howcutt currently there are plans to use a portion of this fund to cover the local plan pressures and some of the building improvements required as  ...  view the full minutes text for item 17.

Grant Thornton 19/20 Audit Findings report

The audit findings report summaries the work coming out of the audit so far, it is substantially complete.

The date from receiving accounts was pushed back this year to the end of August with the latest date for auditing pushed back to the end of November, however the finance team were able to provide the accounts at the end of June as originally planned.

The areas still to complete are around prior period adjustments, this is due to the fact GT have to go through an internal review with their technical team on those and that is still ongoing.

In terms of pensions, GT cannot sign off on the accounts until they have received the assurance letter from EY.

Due to the pandemic all work has been undertaken remotely, this has meant things have taken a little longer while everyone got use to the new way of working. 

GT anticipate being able to conclude with an unmodified audit opinion following the resolution of the outstanding areas.

Amber would like to thank the finance team for their quick responses, the high quality of their responses and working with GT to work remotely.

In terms of the audit approach, the materiality levels were changes slightly from the planning stage, this was purely based of the fact the figures were slightly different to the draft accounts which meant materiality fell slightly.

Materiality was reviewed in line with Covid to see if there was any additional risk however it was decided that was covered by the work already planned.

The areas of focus for the audit were determined by the audit plan which was presented in February. They were as follows

·        Valuation of land and building

·        Management override of control

·        Pension liability

The pandemic has been noted as a significant risk in the addendum which was brought to the last committee, there have been no changes since then.

It became clear quite early on that the RICS guidance were pointing to a material uncertainty within valuations, this was expected across all sectors. It was included in their report and so it was expected that DBC would make that clear and transparent to readers in the accounts, which they did.  GT have drawn attention to this in their audit findings report and their opinion. The opinion remains unmodified.

There are some minor disclosure findings on PPE, pensions, accounting policies, judgements and estimates which are detailed in the report and have all been amended.

Overall this was a very positive audit with no major concerns.

The Internal Audit Progress Reports were deferred to the next meeting.

The work programme was reviewed and agreed