Meeting documents

The Chairman welcomed representatives from Grant Thornton.

Mr Paul Grady explained the Audit Plan which set out the general value for money work, key areas of risk and the work proposed in response to risk.

Page 118 - 112 summarised key challenges for the Council which included Adult Social Care Transformation Plans and the response to the Ofsted rating of Children’s Social Care. 

Mr Grady reported that page 123 contained a typographical error: the chart should read £16.5M as opposed to £16.5.

Page 124 was an examination of the Council’s value for money arrangements, ensuring that these would be fit for purpose. This included a review of the Council’s medium to long term ambitions and the assumptions in place to satisfy financial viability, including those built on strategic work.

The Chairman thanked Mr Grady for this overview and invited questions from Members.

• A Member raised a query regarding audit quality and asked whether there would be any changes in the approach to accounting practices in relation to the move to a more commercialised style environment. It was confirmed that this change would be taken into account but that the audit would be in line with international financial reporting standards which would be the same as any large commercial entity.
• In relation to the accruals provisions that the Council had been making regarding Bucks Care, Members asked whether there would be any residual challenges in 2018-19. Members were told that, while there would still be some considerations in this respect from the auditors perspective and there were still balances on the Council’s books, there would be no further transactions and as such there should be no residual challenges in 2018-19.
• An in depth discussion took place in relation to the risks associated with possible conflicts of interest for Members on external bodies. While this had not been flagged up as one of the four main risks, this was taken into account as part of the governance issues that the Council would need to monitor. The audit would look at the provisions the Council had in place to mitigate this risk.
• Ms Forsyth highlighted that any conflict should be reported to the Monitoring Officer and in turn this would be reported to internal audit. Ms Harlock went into further detail to explain this process to Members.
• Members were concerned about IT security and whether extra scrutiny would be in place to mitigate any risks. Ms Harlock explained that the Council had software access rights in place. However, there would still be some residual risks around poor use. Mr Grady added that there would be other controls in place to minimise the impact should an incident arise.
• A Member raised a quality issue in relation to the aforementioned typographical error on page 123. Mr Grady explained that any errors would be recorded and monitored to see if there was a cumulative impact and subsequently would look at whether any errors were intentional or accidental.

The Chairman thanked the representatives from Grant Thornton for their report.