Meeting documents

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 following feedback from managers there had been a change to forthcoming planned work.  The reviews of Building Control and Licensing had been deferred as these areas were currently implementing new systems.  Instead, the next review work would look at areas including Housing Benefits, Council tax, business rates and payroll.

 

Implementation of agreed audit actions

 

Internal Audit monitored the implementation of actions and recommendations raised by reviews to ensure that the control weaknesses identified had been satisfactorily addressed.  Actions arising from low risk audit findings were followed up by management and reviewed, but not validated by internal audit.

 

The overall progress and detail of those actions which were considered to be due were set out in Appendix 3 to the report. At the end of November 2017, there were 37 recommendations due of which 23 were still outstanding and had been given a revised date of implementation.  New appointments to key positions and post organisational restructure changes were the main drivers leading to delays in implementation of the actions.

 

2017/18 Internal Audit Resource

 

Since the last Audit Committee meeting a contract had been awarded to BDO LLP to provide co-sourced internal audit services for the period 1 October 2017 to 31 March 2021, with an option to extend for a further two years.  The Chairman welcomed Mr Greg Rubins, BDO Internal Audit Partner to the meeting.

 

Internal Audit Plan and progress tracker

 

Progress and changes against the approved 2017/18 Annual Internal Audit Plan were detailed at Appendix 2 to the Committee report.

 

Members sought information on internal audit work and at:-

·                     Appendix 3 – it was commented that Overdue Recommendations should include information on the date of the review, the original date to implement recommendations and revised implementation date(s).

·                     Housing Benefits Review (Appendix 3, pages 25-26) – were informed that the delays in implementing recommendations was mainly due to the organisational re-structure.  The upcoming 2017/18 internal audit of Housing Benefits would look again at issues raised in the last report and any risks to delivering the service.

·                     Fixed Assets (Appendix 3, page 28) – were informed that review recommendations would be discussed with the newly appointed Strategic Finance Manager so that appropriate action could be taken for the 31 March 2018 Balance Sheet.

·                     General Ledger (Appendix 3, pages 28-29) – it was commented that while the review had identified actions summarised by 4 separate dot points, the update only reported general progress.  It would be helpful with future reporting if update information could be provided separately for each of the dot points.

 

Members sought further information on the Planning and Planning Enforcement review and:-

·                     were informed that, where possible, Planning looked to have continuity of Officers dealing with applications, although this had not always been possible during the organisational restructure.

·                     it was commented that the Council needed to do more to inform people and Parish Councils, and manage their expectations regarding what Planning Enforcement actions the Council could, or could not, take.  For example, it was suggested that a Members’ seminar could be held on Planning Enforcement.

·                     expressed concerns that failures to provide the expected level of service for what was a specialised service would lead to reputational damage for the Council.

·                     were informed that KPIs for planning complaints were currently being put in place.  Members commented that KPIs should have quality measures as well as numerical measures.  For example, KPIs should include information on the number of applications received, completed and carried forward from each period, and include trend analysis of performance over the longer term.  This would enable the public to be better informed when a complaint / issue was raised.

·                     were informed that the quarterly planning reports did not always accurately highlight the huge pressures that staff were under in this area.

·                     it was commented that it would be helpful to provide Members with more information on the role of Parish Liaison Officers (PLOs) so they could understand best utilise them.  It was also commented that it might be helpful for PLOs to attend some Local Area Forum meetings.

·                     were informed that it was intended for a review of the Council’s complaints, comments and compliments process to be considered for inclusion in the 2018/19 Annual Internal Audit Plan.

·                     it was agreed that Finding 3, ‘A formal Member/Officer engagement session needs to be developed including input to the creation of the new planning system’ would be re-classified from ‘low’ to ‘medium’.  The overall review classification remained as "medium risk".

 

Action Point:  to monitor the progress made in putting in place KPIs and a meaningful complaints system for Planning and Planning Enforcement.

 

Members sought further information on the Commercial Property Service Charges review and were informed that the Council’s Property and Estates Manager (newly in post) was working to ensure the detailed findings and action plan from the review were actioned.  This would include a full review of each of the Council’s properties and ensuring that the accounting structure and billing processes were correct.  This work was being overseen by the Finance Steering Board.  It would be important for the lessons learnt from this review to be taken into account for the future.

 

Action Point: report back on what impacts the service charging inconsistencies had on tenants, e.g. had any tenants been lost?, financial impact on the Council?

 

RESOLVED –

 

That the progress report and action points made at the meeting be noted.