Agenda item

P Lazenby referred to page 11 and advised there was just one report and the actions had been accepted and implemented already.

He moved to page 19, appendix B, which was progress against the annual plan. He drew attention to the report titled management systems which was draft in December but had been escalated and was expected to be finalised shortly. Housing rents was listed as in progress and housing repairs and maintenance was rescheduled and was expected to be undertaken the following month. Procurement and contract management was expected at the end of next week and governance and risk management was delayed at the councils request until June. Follow up is ongoing and to support that was appendix C. He said this was a process that will be increasingly tightened as he approaches preparations for his Head of Internal Audit Opinion Statement and that will be partially informed by any outstanding actions that haven’t received an update.

Councillor Tindall referred to page 23 and asked if the medical checks for drivers were now up to date. F Jump advised that work was ongoing in the service to ensure they were up to date. She believed that the responsible service asked for an extended implementation date for this recommendation which was the end of this month. An update would be provided at the next audit committee meeting. Councillor Tindall felt this matter was very serious and needed to be treated with urgency. To provide some additional assurance P Lazenby advised that this would form part of the two year rolling plan so there would be an additional audit to make sure that the underlying root causes of the issue were addressed.

The Chairman asked if the drivers would undergo regular health checks, for example every 12 months. P Lazenby replied there would be a process of rolling medical checks.

Councillor Townsend referred to the recommendations and implementation timetable. He asked if they should be concerned that some of the original target dates hadn’t been met. He then asked if P Lazenby was confident that the revised dates would be achieved. P Lazenby advised that if he was to profile Dacorum against other councils he provided services to the follow up at Dacorum was pretty good in totality. In respect of individual actions that had been highlighted there was always a risk that matters get passed from date to date and that was why there was an assiduous follow up process between P Lazenby and F Jump in place with the additional audits to provide assurance. He said it was possible that some of the dates would slip, however he took assurance that Dacorum had an open and transparent reporting system where regular updates are provided and that was above and beyond the reporting system seen in a lot of other organisations. F Jump added that a list of outstanding recommendations was presented to the relevant service lead on a monthly basis for them to comment on that information.

Councillor Townsend commented that there had been significant improvement in comparison to 2010. The Chairman agreed.

Outcome

The report was noted.