Agenda item

The Committee considered the external auditors interim annual report for 2021/22. Under National Audit Office (NAO) Code of Practice regulations, external auditors were also required to make a Value for Money assessment to consider that local authorities have put in place proper arrangements to secure economy, efficiency and effectiveness in its use of resources. The report provided detail on the Council’s overall arrangements, as well as key recommendations on any significant weaknesses in arrangements identified during the audit. Mr David Skinner, Section 151 Officer and Mr Mark Stocks, Audit Partner, Grant Thornton, External Auditor presented the item.

The external auditor’s conclusion of the Council’s Value for Money detailed assessment was provided in Appendix A.

Points raised during discussion included:

·       As noted above, the Council had increased staffing capacity and had produced an articulated plan which it was delivering against to catch up on the accounts. The report would remain interim, as had the 2020/21 annual audit report, until the relevant years accounts were able to be signed off.

·       Overall, the report was positive. In terms of financial sustainability there was satisfaction with how the Council was balancing its budget and was not drawing on reserves to fund recurrent expenditure. There were no governance concerns, although it was noted that there was not as much governance around subsidiary companies during 2021/22 as there was presently. In relation to economy, efficiency and effectiveness the Corporate Plan was clear and progress was noted within Childrens Care Services.

·       The management response on strengthening internal audit resourcing was explained in that resourcing had been strengthened through the team’s restructure and any audits that had to be deferred had been replaced with other important audits. It was noted that there would be a change of approach to deferred audits in the current year.

·       The management response for the SEND recommendation would be clarified further prior to the report being finalised to ensure there was clarity around the internal audit/external audit/SEND audit inspection regimes.

·       The Committee discussed complaints reporting, and whilst the overall number of complaints was reported to the Standards and General Purposes Committee, the Committee agreed that a report on payments out to complainants should be presented to this Committee for both the 2022/23 and 2023/24 financial years in line with the requirements of the Constitution. It was explained that there had been some increases seen to complaint levels following the covid lockdown period where complaints were suspended, however levels had since subsided and returned to a level in keeping with previous years.

ACTION: That a report on payments out to complainants be added to the work programme for an appropriate meeting of this Committee in 2023/24.

·       The Committee heard that the Buckinghamshire Shareholder Committee had been set up by Cabinet and had been in operation for around a year, overseeing subsidiary companies’ business plans and finances and producing an annual report to Cabinet. The Committee requested that an annual report on companies’ governance be presented to an appropriate meeting in the 2023/24 financial year. It was confirmed that company directors had received the appropriate training in September 2022 and this training would take place annually.

ACTION: That an annual report on companies’ governance be added to the work programme for an appropriate meeting of this Committee in 2023/24.

·       It was explained that the external auditor had used benchmarking information to assess overall service expenditure referred to within the performance review, monitoring and assessment section of the report. The Committee was advised that from an external audit perspective it was those red rated performance indicators that the Council and/or Committee may wish to focus further on. The Chairman advised that the formulation of KPI’s was a governance issue and suggested a report on this subject come to the Committee at a future meeting to ensure KPIs were fit for purpose. The monitoring of KPIs was subject to scrutiny by the relevant select committee.

ACTION: That a report on the formulation of key performance indicators be added to the work programme for an appropriate meeting of this Committee in 2023/24.

·       The Committee noted that Community Boards were incorrectly described within the Partnership Working section of the document and highlighted that all ward members within the Board areas were Board Members.

·       A Member queried the wording of ‘follow-up of previous recommendations’ number 1, which noted that the Committee disagreed with the recommendation. The Chairman explained that this disagreement was around the ‘continued keen focus’ wording as it was difficult to evidence that this was necessary given that the recommendation arose from a 2020/21 report and we were now into the 2023/24 year. The Member suggested that this recommendation be re-instated with the appropriate level of wording due to his concerns around budget management and finances in the current climate.

·       The Committee agreed that the report was positive and captured the relevant information, although would require a comprehensive check to ensure it was accurate, comprehensible throughout and reflected the points raised above to ensure areas such as the SEND audit clarification, Community Boards, Risk Management Group membership, and finances were accurate.

ACTION: Mr L Ashton to provide a list of the above points to Mr D Skinner to produce a draft paper to circulate to Members for agreement by the end of July 2023 for forwarding on to Mr M Stocks to incorporate the comments and changes.

RESOLVED:

That the findings in the report by the external auditor attached at Appendix A on the Council arrangement for securing Value for Money (VfM) in its use of resources, the recommendations made and management’s response be noted with the above amendments to be made for inclusion in the final version of the report.