Agenda item

P Lazenby presented the report, noting the summary of the 5 audit reports issued since the last Committee, 4 of which have reasonable and substantial assurance and 1 has limited assurance, which is presented in full at the end of the report. Looking at page 2 of the report, section 8, P Lazenby highlighted the summary of progress on recommendations and a further update will be presented at the next meeting. P Lazenby highlighted the requested extensions and confirmed that further explanations could be provided.

Looking at the Corporate Health and Safety Audit Report, P Lazenby noted that this has been provided with limited assurance. The audit was taken when the organisation was going through strategic changes and policies and procedures were being updated. There were 9 recommendations made and it was highlighted that the date of 28th February 2023 has been included to allow a follow-up and update for the Committee. It was noted that a large number of the recommendations have already been actioned or are in the process of doing so and a detailed update will be provided with evidence that the issue has been resolved for any priority 2 items. It was noted that recommendations have not been updated and they are now undertaking the follow-up process to confirm that underlying issues have been resolved.

Cllr Chapman commented on item 8 on page 17 of the report, noting that 12 of the 22 outstanding recommendations have been revised and asked what actions had been taken against the other recommendations.

P Lazenby confirmed that the remaining recommendations do not have a revised date, though they remain outstanding at present.

Cllr Symington commented on the wait for a management response and asked if this is to be expected.

PLazenby confirmed that they would normally seek assurance from the responsible officer that there has been progress in respect of issues highlighted and that some mitigations should be provided. R LeBrun advised that the audit was completed in May 2022 and, since this time, a new senior leadership team has come in and there has been a refresh of policies, with a new policy in place. It was noted that there is also a health and safety strategy and action plan that addresses all issues in the audit and beyond to ensure health and safety considered throughout the organisation. The action plan is in place and is being supported by the new health and safety policy and is backed by a fully-funded training programme.

Cllr Symington noted that this is the first limited assurance report they have received.

P Lazenby responded that this was not correct and highlighted the limited assurance report for waste services recently.

Cllr Symington commented on the changes that have taken place since the audit and asked if the problems have occurred due to management changes.

P Lazenby suggested that the issues pre-dated the management changes.

Next looking at Commercial Asset Management, P Lazenby noted that this was provided with reasonable assurance and just 3 recommendations were raised, 1 of which was flagged as important and refers to terms of reference.

P Lazenby noted the Payroll report, advising that few recommendations were raised and that this is an area that will be reviewed yearly. It was also noted that whilst dates are put to the recommendations, these are for management to implement mitigations and that implementing them beyond this date is considered a failing.

No questions were raised by members regarding the presented items.

Looking at the Housing Benefit Debt Report, P Lazenby noted the 3 recommendations and confirmed that these were broadly accepted by management with the priority 2 recommendation under consideration. It was noted that this was an internal management judgement regarding how to apply internal resources on risk versus return.

Cllr Symington asked how serious it is to have over 1,000 debtors for a balance of £1.2m.

F Jump commented that this is not an unusual amount of debt in terms of housing benefit. On the allocation of resource, F Jump advised that there are number of debts that they are involved in to recover and that there is a scientific process of prioritisation of these debts.

P Lazenby added that he agrees with the management response and that the item is kept under review.

Cllr Symington commented that housing benefit debt is due to overpayments and asked if there is any resourcing to prevent this from occurring. P Lazenby advised that they haven't made many recommendations in regards to controls as they are broadly effective.

S Potton advised that a large amount of debt is created as a result of DWP initiatives around cleaning up data for people moving over to Universal Credit, causing an increase in reviews and thereby uncovering more debt.

P Lazenby next looked at the Housing Allocation and Homelessness Report, noting the challenges of this area and confirmed that a number of recommendations raised are in respect to what has been seen elsewhere and management have provided detailed responses in respect of these. A number of the recommendations are raised in respect of sample testing that was undertaken, and there are also recommendations around KPIs, structure and resourcing.

Cllr Symington noted the number of housing allocation and homelessness recommendations and asked for clarification on the differentiation between reasonable and limited.

P Lazenby advised that this is a matter of judgement for the individual auditor, though the general guidance is that 1 high priority or 6 medium-level recommendations will be in a limited assurance report. If there are 4-5 medium-level recommendations then this is for the auditor and P Lazenby to make a judgement on.

Looking at appendix B of the report, P Lazenby noted the progress of the audits throughout the year and confirmed that he has no overall concerns on the state of the progress, adding that he anticipates a large number of audit reports being provided at the next Committee meeting.

P Lazenby provided an overview of the follow-up table, noting that this lists the recommendations with revised implementation dates and all recommendations that are or due to become outstanding. The report is provided with the intention to indicate the latest response from management, though a number of additional responses have been received since the report was compiled. P Lazenby highlighted recommendations where the date has been moved historically and no further management updates have been provided.

Cllr Symington commented on procurement, noting that this has returned to Finance and Resources twice, this first time it being a list of items that didn't meet the criteria and that she felt there was little effort to mitigate against this beyond creating a list. Cllr Symington asked how the Committee can recognise that action is being taken.

P Lazenby advised that the person undertaking the review is a long-established auditor and will look to see that management have asserted that the recommendation is being implemented but they also need to be clear that the underlying problem is being addressed. On recommendation 4, P Lazenby explained that the auditor would be looking to see a downward trajectory rather than just a list of outliers, though this will not prevent the issue recurring and these recommendations therefore need to be monitored.

B Hosier noted that whilst items may be listed for scrutiny, this has significantly reduced the number of procurement standing orders that have been set aside, and it was confirmed that this would be addressed further under item 7.

Outcome

The Committee noted the decision on the outstanding internal audit recommendations as outlined under section 3 of the report.