Meeting documents

To inform the Committee that there has been a change to the Conservative Group membership of the Committee, with Councillors M Collins and A Waite replacing Councillors C Branston and B Chapple OBE.

The Committee was informed that there had been a change to the Conservative Group membership of the Committee, with Councillors M Collins and A Waite replacing Councillors C Branston and B Chapple OBE.

The Chairman thanked Councillors Branston and B Chapple for their past contributions to the Committee and welcomed the new Members.

To elect a Vice Chairman of the Audit Committee for the remainder of the municipal year.

RESOLVED –

That Councillor Irwin be elected Vice Chairman of the Audit Committee for the remainder of the municipal year.

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting held on 25 September, 2017, copy attached.

RESOLVED –

That the minutes of the meeting held on 25 September 2017 be approved as a correct record.

NOTE:

1.            The Director with responsibility for finance gave an undertaking to provide Members with information on Delegation of financial approval authority.

2.            It was agreed that work would be done to enable the Committee to better track Minutes recommendations at future meetings.

Members to declare any interests.

There were none.

To receive a verbal update on the Housing Benefit Certification work.

Contact:  Adrian Balmer (Ernst and Young LLP)

The Committee received a verbal update from the external auditors on their work associated with the certification of grant claims for 2016/17 submitted by AVDC.

Certification work was not an audit.  It involved executing prescribed tests which were designed to give reasonable assurance that claims and returns were fairly stated and in accordance with specified terms and conditions. Under section 28 of the Audit Commission Act 1998, as transitionally saved, the Audit Commission made arrangements for certifying claims and returns in respect of the 2016/17 financial year.  In certifying this the external auditors followed a methodology determined by the Department for Works and Pensions.

Members were informed that the work on the claim for the 2016/17 year had been completed and would be submitted to DWP by the end of November 2017 deadline.  In contrast to last year’s claim, it was anticipated that AVDC would receive a repayment from the DWP.  A report on the work and findings would be reported to the Audit Committee in January 2018.

To consider the attached report.

Contact Officer: Kate Mulhearn (01296) 585724

The Committee received a progress report on assurance work activity undertaken against the 2017/18 Assurance Plan that had been approved by the Audit Committee in July 2017.

The following matters were highlighted:-

Final Reports issued since the previous Committee Meeting

The Planning and Planning Enforcement review had been completed and contained 2 medium risk recommendations and 3 low risk recommendations.  Overall, the report had been classified as Medium Risk with key findings summarised as follows:-

·                    There was no local formal monitoring of comments, compliments and complaints and a process needs to be created (Medium).

·                    Proactive planning enforcement was not taking place (Medium).

·                    A formal Member/Officer engagement session needed to be developed including input to the creation of the new planning system (Low).

·                    Improvements to the oversight of the effectiveness of the Planning Liaison Officer role are needed (Low).

·                    Pre application advice costs are benchmarked as reasonable but are not fully substantiated (Low)

A number of areas of good practice had also been noted in relation to the performance for processing both minor and major planning applications, providing Members’ with a formal Quarterly Performance Report via the Planning Committee, and that a number of applications/cases that you been tested had all been found to have been processed in accordance with legislative requirements.

The Development Management Team had undergone structural change in the last 12 months.  AVDC, like other councils across the county, was facing challenges around recruiting planning officers and therefore there were a large number of consultants supporting delivery and current vacancies for 1 Principal and 4.5 Senior officers.

New planning software was currently being developed with a move from Uniform to a Salesforce platform.  This was intended to go live in 2018 and would change how staff, Members and the public interacted with the planning process.

The Commercial Property Service Charges review had also been completed, and contained 1 high risk, 1 medium risk and 2 low risk recommendations.  Overall, the report had been classified as Medium Risk with key findings summarised as follows:-

·                    It had been found that some service charges were not levied where they should be and examples of costs being applied to service charges incorrectly had also been identified (High).

·                    Account codes on the ledger for each property were not sufficiently established to understand service charge costs (Medium).

·                    There was a lack of robust monitoring of arrangements for tenants at Council sites over certain lease rights such as car park spaces (Low).

·                    Some minor instances were identified where service charge costs applied were stated as "not applicable" (excluded) cost in contracts with tenants and therefore the Council had applied costs that were in breach of contracts held (Low)

A project had recently begun to create a property asset management database to integrate with the general ledger and a review of commercial property charges will be completed by end of January 2018. Once completed, this should address many of the issues highlighted in the report.

2017/18 Internal Audit Plan work in progress

Members were informed that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

To consider the Committee’s work programme, as detailed in the attached report.

Contact Officer: Kate Mulhearn (01296) 585724

The Committee considered the future Work Programme which took account of comments and requests made at previous Committee meetings and particular views expressed at the meeting, and the requirements of the internal and external audit processes.

RESOLVED –

That the future Work Programme as submitted to the meeting be approved.

To consider the attached report.

Contact Officer:  Kate Mulhearn (01296) 585724

The Audit Committee had a role to monitor the effectiveness of risk management and internal control across the Council. As part of discharging this role the committee was asked to review the Corporate Risk Register (CRR). The CRR provided evidence of a risk aware and risk managed organisation and reflected the risks that were on the current radar for Commercial Board. Some of the risks were not dissimilar to those faced across other local authorities.

Since the previous Audit Committee meeting in September 2017 the following risks had changed:

The following matter is for consideration by Members "In Committee". It will therefore be necessary to

RESOLVE –

That under Section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act, 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting for the following item of business on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in the Paragraph indicated in Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act.

Item No. 12 – Risk Management Report The public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information because the report contains information relating to the financial or business affairs of organisations (including the Authority holding that information) and disclosure of commercially sensitive information would prejudice negotiations for contracts and land disposals or transactions.

RESOLVED –

That under Section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act, 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting for the following item of business on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in the Paragraph indicated in Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act.

The public interest in maintaining the exemptions outweighed the public interest in disclosing the information because the documents contained information relating to the financial or business affairs of organisations (including the authority holding that information), and disclosure of commercially sensitive information would prejudice negotiations for contracts and land disposals/transactions.

To consider the attached confidential report.

Contact Officer: Kate Mulhearn (01296) 585724

As part of the discussions at Minute 8, consideration was given to the Council’s Corporate Risk Register.