Meeting documents

To consider the attached report and appendices.

Contact Officer:  Kate Mulhearn (01296) 585724

The Committee received a progress report on activity undertaken against the 2018/19 Assurance Plan that had been approved by the Committee in June 2018.  The following matters were highlighted:-

Final Reports issued since the previous Committee Meeting

The following reviews had been completed since the last Committee meeting:-

·                    Company Governance – Aylesbury Vale Estates (AVE) – the review had evaluated the effectiveness of the Council’s governance of AVE, based on the expectations set out in the "Guide to creation and working with companies in which AVDC has a financial interest", which had recently been updated following the independent review of the Council’s governance arrangements for Aylesbury Vale Estates.  The review of AVE had concluded that it’s governance was compliant with the significant majority of expectations set out in the guide.  However, two area had been identified where governance and the Council working with AVE could be strengthened.  These were:-

o        to clarify who was empowered to discharge certain roles (and functions assigned to those roles) set out in the AVE Members’ agreement.  The Council had taken a custom and practice approach to fulfilling these functions but would benefit from clarifying which Committee/people were empowered to discharge them in the event of any future dispute.

o        to update the Members’ agreement to clarify instances where the Council was required to approve sale, transfer or issuance of shares.  This was currently referenced in the Members’ agreement but was worded in a way where it would only apply in certain instances.

Good governance procedures had been identified in a number of areas including business planning, Board composition, reporting to Council and scrutiny, managing any conflicts of interest, and the relationship between the Council and AVE.

·                    Housing Benefits (Medium Risk, 9 points) – the review had identified one medium and 6 low risk findings.  Since the prior year’s high risk report (22 points), continued improvements had been made to processes and controls.  These could be attributed to strength in management and a restructure of staff to ensure specialist benefits officers focussed on higher risk cases, a further training plan and continued monthly quality checks.  These was also widespread use of software to data match HMRC details for applicants and targeted projects to undertake 100% checks on identified risk areas.

There had also been an improvement in oversight of housing benefit overpayment debt.  The audit had highlighted a number of areas where further improvements were required including on the procedures for debt write off, reconciling and clearing historic "landlord" overpayment cases, finalising the mapping exercise to clearly identify responsibilities for the various stages of the HB process, and more consistently using Real Time Information.

·                    Parking Services (Medium Risk) – the review had identified one medium and five low risk findings.  The Parking Service operated across several teams in order to achieve the various parts of the process and these were explained in the report.  The findings had been summarised as follows:-

o        the need to identify an overall lead for parking so that focussed discussions on all parking risks and performance could be held in one forum.  KPIs had also not yet been developed for parking operations.

o        minor improvements were needed in the management of the process of reviewing Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs).

o        improvements were needed in the setting up of Direct Debits for permits.

o        consistent documenting of the acceptance of breaches of the Agree Variance Levels between the monthly BDI Summary Reports and Parking Management totals.

o        Enforcement Officer’s hand held Personal Device Assistants (PDAs) were not able to be remotely disabled, if lost or misplaced.

o        chargebacks were not identified to allow accounts to be suspended to prevent fraud.

o        contract management arrangements needed to be more formalised and documented in line with corporate policies and procedures.

The full review reports were attached as Appendix 3 to the Committee report.

2018/19 Internal Audit Plan Work in Progress

The Committee was informed that a number of reviews were in progress, including:-

·                    Section 106 Agreements.

·                    Billing and Debt Management.

·                    General Ledger and Management Information.

·                    Connected Knowledge.

Summary of changes to the 2018/19 Internal Audit Plan

Members were informed that it was important for the plan to be flexible to respond to emerging or changing risks.  The following changes had been made to the 2018/19 plan since its approval in June 2018:-

·                    Accounts Payable – the focus on follow up of prior year outstanding actions.

·                    Payroll – the original plan had included a post-implementation review of the new Payroll/HR system (XCD).  As the XCD had been cancelled and existing processes kept in place, the audit days would be reallocated to other reviews.  Previous audit of current payroll system had assessed it as low risk.

·                    Tech One – it was intended to review system integration and data transfer controls to ensure the data held in Tech One was complete and accurate.  An IT project was underway to look at Council wide data transfers.  System integration aspects would be picked up in work on reconciliations as part of the General Ledger review and audit days allocated.

·                    Waste and Recycling – Contracts – the original plan had included for a review of the contracts for Street Cleansing / Horticulture and Recycling.  Street scene services were being brought back in-house when the current contract concluded in January 2020.  A new contract for recyclates had been agreed last year.  For both contracts, management procedures were in place and they were not considered a high risk for internal audit review.  The audit days would be reallocated to allow for more in-depth reviews of Commercial Waste and Parking Services.

Implementation of Agreed Audit Actions

The implementation of actions and recommendations raised by internal audit reviews were monitored 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.

A detailed listing of all internal audit actions, together with a status update was included at Appendix 4.  In total, 27 actions were followed up for the March 2019 Committee – that included an update on all actions due for completion by 28 February 2019.  19 out of the 27 actions (70%) had been completed, compared to a 30% completion rate reported in January 2019.

Members sought further information and were informed:-

·                    Housing Benefits – that the work to reconcile complex landlord overpayment cases should be completed by the end of April 2019.  Where monies were owed and were unlikely to, or could not, be recovered then they would be written off via a Cabinet Member or Officer decision, as appropriate.

·                    Parking Services – that the Council was assured that the current Enforcement Officer’s hand held PDAs were GDPR compliant.  New and more up-to-date devices were currently being procured and would hopefully be in use soon.

·                    that financial information on parking services was published annually on the Council’s website.

·                    that AVDC was talking to the County Council with a view to customers being able to use a single mobile app for on-street and off-street parking in Aylesbury.

·                    that AVDC used the Aylesbury Town Centre Partnership as a means to engage with retailers / shopowners, which would include discussing issues such as car parking.

·                    that AVE was compliant with the significant majority of expectations set out in the "Guide to creation and working with companies in which AVDC has a financial interest", although 2 areas had been identified where governance arrangements could be strengthened.

·                    Safeguarding 2016/17 Review – that significant progress had been made in implementing the outstanding actions from this review.

RESOLVED –

(1)          That the progress report be noted, including the good progress that had been made with Housing Benefits and Parking Services, as detailed in their review findings.

(2)          That, should the Chairman not be satisfied by the end of March 2019 that the outstanding actions and implementation of the findings of the Safeguarding 2016/17 Review had been completed, he be authorised to request senior Officers and the Cabinet Member to attend the Audit Committee in June 2019 to provide an update.