 Maen nhw'n flwyddyn sydd dweud gyda'n effaith. Ieitthlau y ddisgrifennu, bydd Dry perddoryniol a síffwll o'r amgylchedd yn mynd y hyn sy'n dweud Holly. Welcome to this September meeting of the Audit and Corporate Governments Committee. My name is Councillor Peter Sanford, I am normally the Vice-Chair of this committee but will chairing the committee today, as the R�kelir Chair, Council Michael Atkins has given us apologies. Mae byddaiwn yn iawn bod Michael yma yn rhaglenu pressydigol â rhaglenu hwnnw o'r ddefnyddio. Lusi Llywodraeth bryd, ac rwy'n bryd yn bwysig wedi dweud eu bwysigol ac yn derbyn i'r ddod gan Llywodraethol. Mae gael gelch yn busd yn nhw i meddwl i fynd cael ei wneud hyn, ddiolch yn y gymryd hefyd ar y llunio'r ffordd, bod yr unig i fy nghycoedd i'r pethau sydd yn iawn hynny, arweud o'r cwestiynau arweud yn ei d🎵koesio'n gwneud ymddangos a'r cyfnwysg fawr ac'r fagfyrdd fyddan nhw, i'r meddylu'r gwneud dda'n ddigonion, sy'n panlineg o'i ddoch i'r cyfrannu. Diolch yn etymol y gallu'n cael y trafiwn sy'n arfer y rhesymu, a'i eisiau yn gwneud yn cyfrannu â'r cyfrannu chacolm. Felly yna yn dyfu'r cyfrannu llwyddi yn gwych yn cael ei ddweud, sgwpas you're on your microphone off unless you've been invited to do it otherwise. Please ensure that you have switched off or silenced any other devices you have so they do not interrupt proceedings. Please use a headset when speaking and hold the microphone close to your mouth. When you're invited to address the meeting make sure your microphone is switched on. When you finish addressing the meeting, please turn your microphone off immediately. Speak slowly and clearly and please do not talk over or interrupt anyone. That concludes the housekeeping announcements. Now move on to apologis for absence. Democratic services, do we have any apologises for absence today please? Chair, aside from Questler-Michael Atkins I'm not aware of any others. Thank you. Thank you. cwm iawn ond mor codi ar ystod i edrych. Pwy'r lysidol, mae'r cychwyn dynnwys ar yw ddull iawn. Roeddwn i'n ddweud mae'n credu ei eu ddweud, mae'n credu i'r ddweud eich bwysig yma, roeddaf i ddechait lleIG- y croedd? Roryn. Roryn gweithio, dreid. Rydych chi'n cwm eich nosoddiad nhw o'r myfynol yw, ac yn ni'n credu eu yw'r cyffredin sy'n meddwl yn dyfodol. Roeddaf i'r cwm i'n credu. Mae'r cysyllt y gallwn wedi'i wneud yw'r ysgolodd am yma, yma'r ymddwyr gyffredig dechrau Aberystwyll, oedd y cysylltiad ymddardr ymddangos. Felly byddai'n fwy fwy sydd wedi'i gweithio'r cyfnodr. Yr cyfnodr Oedden. Fy yw'r cyfnod ar bod yn cyfnodr ymddangos ymddangos mawr hefyd? Ymddangos, ddod yn ychwanfod. any other declarations from around the room okay thank you now we move on to the minutes of the previous meeting before we ask for approval Peter Maddick I think you have a comment on one of the items in the minutes and defer to the I think the last agenda item that is a topic of interest yeah so um which item is it um regarding it's doing all that so I mean the item you've thrown to the item on doing our business yep yeah so um there's a there's a report on the agenda about um so should I pick everything up under that yep that's fine I think the minutes noted the report will be brought back to the committee today and that's um so that what's gonna happen yeah so that the report it's uh that's there because um because the usual process for um settling fees rests with the um public public sector audit appointments um they now have uh the information from us and indeed for me why and they will be carrying out a review of those fees and that's the proper room for the um settling issues like this so um I'll talk about it a bit more later on the expert part of this chair thank you Peter in which case our members happy to approve the minutes of the meeting held on the 28th of July 2022 is a correct record if so I move approval of the minutes um I'll need a seconder I think I'll second that chair thank you councillor hails anyone have any objections to approval of the minutes okay consider them approved I would make one comment regarding the last meeting um a leader of the council became aware of a number of comments that were made during discussions and expressed to concern to councillor Michael Atkins as chair um I fully appreciate there's a lot of history between uh around the council finances and particularly the audits but please try and keep your comments respectful uh professional however tempting it may be not to thank you we did have a request for public speaking from Mr oh sorry there go ahead councillor Williams thank you chair um I think if the leader has an issue with anything any members of this council have said then it would be helpful to identify what it was um I'd also say chair that I would seek or reassurance and that this is not a political this is a scrutiny function of which the leader does not have authority to say how this matter is conducted can I seek your assurance that there will not be political interference and we will continue to be able to fulfill our scrutiny role uh noted thank you councillor Williams um yes we are here to perform a scrutiny role and um resolve all the problems outstanding with the account so this isn't a particular issue I heard about this second hand by a council act and so I don't know the details but certainly follow up when um councillor Smith is back from her holiday thank you okay I need to declare an interest that must be you councillor Ayles yeah sorry chair um I'm missing to declare this when you asked for the declaration um I didn't think it was relevant but it currently is and so I declare as an interest as a trustee of the Melbourne mobile warden scheme um which has received and is receiving grants from scdc thanks he did receive a request for public speaking from Mr Daniel Fulton um Mr Fulton is not in the room I do not see him on the live stream so I think we can move on to the next agenda item members we have now reached agenda item four an update on the use of the regulation of investigatory powers act 2000 known by the acronym RIPA can I ask Mr Ori McKenna monitoring officer to present this report please um thank you chair so chair this is an item that normally comes at the end of the agenda but it was decided at the last meeting to bring it forward simply because it's a very short item um I can't confirm that RIPA was not used since the committee last met I've no further update but I'm happy to take questions and it is just a noting report thank you thank you Mr McKenna do any members of the committee have questions or comments I see no one wishing to speak so I will say thank you to Ori McKenna for his report the committee is asked to note that the council has not used surveillance powers since the committee last met item five on the agenda is treasury management annual report 2021-22 may I ask Peter Maddock head of finance to present this report thank you so um this committee receives reports in relation to our treasury management function um so uh there's an annual report comes this time of year so that obviously looks at the year of 2021-31 march uh the next committee will see half yearly report and there will also be a treasury strategy so this this is the first of those sort of three reports um you'll see um the first table shows a summary of our treasury position that's paragraph five on page 11 and you'll see that we've um got 205 million with the public works loan board that relates to our housing and self-financing and those are longer term loans and then we've got local authority borrowings of 50 million at the end of March and and you'll see we also had investments of 117 million so the net position or the net borrowing position is 137 million the second table shows a bit more detail behind the 117 117 million so uh that's a paragraph six so um you'll see that there's a lending with a number of banks and building societies uh money market funds but primarily our our lending is to um south camps limited um in street um and there's 95 there was 95 million lend to them at the end of March and the there's been a slight increase in investments over the 12 month period of about six million you'll see that there at the bottom of that table um there there's a further table at paragraph 14 which just shows some of the counter parties uh that we had money with uh and the maturity days of those um and there's there's just another table uh showing the buying position in some way so that's that's uh just again the PWLB and the short term borrowing um we do regular benchmarking exercises with other local authorities um looking at returns looking at credit risk and obviously from authority to authority there are sort of different credit risks and different um return so um we we we put the average in and at the moment our returns are a bit better than average but also our risk is a little bit higher than average um but certainly it's within it's within times it's a reset so there's nothing particularly of concern there um I think uh that's probably all to say on that at this point there's a a dependent speed there's some information from our Treasury advisors they provide an economic review um now this is obviously related to the last financial year and things have moved on quite some quite a bit since then but that's there just for if anybody has any thoughts comments any questions on on the report taking jails privilege a question about the table at the bottom page 13 um mostly investments listed appear to have matured already um they've been rolled over re-invested so those investments yeah so um that's just saying showing us what's happened since that so obviously the year and we had those investments and some of those have matured um and they generally would have been rolled over um the mid mid-year report where we will be able to give us an update on that I don't know the exact position but that'll be able to give us an update on where we are with those okay thank you um cancer williams thank you chair if um I could just have some elaboration around the amounts of funds that we have on short term loans we've discussed this in the past and what are our our thoughts on how we're going to either refinance or pay back I just I asked the question chair in reference to the statement on page 17 about the indicators around um needing to be replaced at times of uncertainty over interest rates just wondering how we're going to deal with that thank you so we are we are now thinking about um mixing our borrowing up a bit more and saying we've um taken advantage of low interest rates in the past but obviously now as we know interest rates are starting to to go up um we're looking to invest some longer term we're going to be talking to our advisors about how long term that is because one thing we don't want to do we don't want to take out very long term investments very long term borrowing if we find the borrowing that that's supporting the the asset is sold for example so and we're going to be looking potentially at having some of our borrowing long term that I would suspect it would be a mixture of both that would probably be when we would go at this point thank you chair could you just remind me or Mr Maddox for us of how much it is that we're going to need to refinance this year so um we're still we're still at 50 million we um we've got some due for refinancing in december now we're starting to look at what we do with that I think we've got I think from then we've got five million we've got two charges of five million coming up so what we will probably do is roll one over shorter term and go one longer term we need to talk to our treasure advisors about what the what the best period is to go forward that obviously interest rates are going to be volatile at the moment and and you know we're obviously seeing increases so are those increases going to be longer term or sustained are they not so there's quite a few things in the mix to to assess what's the best course of action and I think I'd be reluctant to do anything of a major reaction about talking this through with our treasury advisors they're just to to to make sure that we get the strategy right chair if I may just taking on board comments made by Mr Maddox there but um and given obviously the current climate that when those decisions are made that we could have sight of that at a future a report on it in the future meeting because I'm just conscious that some even the long-term loans will will expire at some point um so we could have a clear strategy presented to audit I think that would be good for a governance point of view I think that's a very good suggestion Councillor Williams just another feasible yeah so um we obviously update our treasury strategy there will be some changes you know we've had a couple of years of barely sort of benign rates but now we need to look at that and I suspect the treasury strategy going forward will need to need to be amended to take into account the situation we're facing at the moment yeah so that's that's probably the best time to to put it in as part of that report if that's okay thank you Mr Maddox Councillor Harvie um yes thank you chair um I suppose on on the other side of the coin um seem to be looking at a period in which inflation is increasing which we tend to erode the value of our investments I suppose unless the returns tend to increase um commensurately and I just um I'm sorry I should should have prepared this question but it only really occurred to me just um listening to what Councillor Williams was saying um I mean for the investments that we have how to what extent are we sort of locked into a sort of percentage return that was um more associated with the previous 10 years than the next 10 years you like and have we got enough wiggle rooms to sort of sort of unwind that position and readjust so as I mentioned earlier a lot of our investments are in Erwin Street so that is tied up for the longer term the latest business plan for Erwin Street was suggesting that um they wouldn't be able to repay that loan for some time so a lot of our investments are tied up with Erwin Street longer term most of the rest of them are fairly short term um I think you know without going through them I think that some of them are sort of up to six months we've got a few a bit longer than that so and we do hold some money quite short but of course the rates on that is so um you know we'll be looking at that we've got quite a bit of flexibility but obviously if we need to make investments we may well see an increase in rates but then on the reverse of that is an increase in borrowing rates so it's quite things are quite volatile at the moment as I said and I think um I think the other thing we are looking at and this again is a bit of a balancing act is whether we do invest for a slightly longer term than some of our investments because we have traditionally gone quite short but um you know we are having to think about other investments we can make us some property fund investors out there and I know we've sort of talked about that a little bit in the past at the moment we haven't done any more on that but it might be something we might want to consider to increase our investment returns but again we've got to balance that against when we're going to need cash so again that's something to talk to with our Treasury advisors so um isn't it worrying for some interesting times I think it's fair to say thank you thank you Mr Eric um are there any other comments or questions from the floor members Councillor Leaming thank you chair um is a question of curiosity as much as anything um why are we investing in or how do we choose to invest in particular local authorities so what tends to happen is that if we've got some money that we need to invest we will we have a broker who will um he will know what authorities are looking for money and he'll also know what authorities are looking to lend some money so he he's the and um we'll often we'll often find that um say say one authority wants five million and they will they will say tell the broker what rate they're looking for and and we'll often find there's a little bit of competition around the the rates so you know generally if we've wanted to go for a year we'll find one authority that perhaps is prepared to offer a bit more so it's nothing more than that a broker sort of just tries to match person that needs the money with the person that's lending it and um yeah you know we don't really know who it's going to be with until the day I think I guess thank you Councillor Stobart this is another general question um we haven't referred and I know it comes up to comes up for review uh in a later meeting the risk register the council's risk risk register and I was wondering um given what um Councillor Williams and Councillor Harvey have said about how things emerge and change um I was wondering how investment risk appears on the risk register and if it is is there anything going from green to orange or from orange to red um is it a kind of general comment is it's that how visible these things are at the level of the council's risk so we are we are actually currently doing quite a lot of work on our risks I think common was the last meeting of a meeting before there was a report came about our our risk register so we're actually reviewing all of our risks and clearly this is one which at the moment will need updating because quite a bit has happened in recent months so we'll be looking there there is a risk around our mob borrowings and lendings so we'll need to to review that risk and that will all be coming back fairly shortly but we are actually doing quite a big exercise across the authority looking at all of our risks I think some of them um are definitely in need of updating there will probably be some new risks that we need to introduce as well so and there is yeah there is quite a lot of work going on on that so um we should see something fairly short here around uh risks in relation to interest borrowings and and general finance because clearly you know um we've got inflation going through the roof we've got increases in interest rates we've got prospects at reduced funding so there's a lot of financial risk uh coming along so we need to carefully look at our risks and update them in light of what's happening in the moment so it's quite yeah quite a lot to look at on this front of the moment now thank you are there any other comments or questions from members Councillor Hill? Thank you for Peter again sorry Peter um it's a bit of a risk actually now that's been raised by Councillor Stogart risk um you talked about the work you're doing on it now just to update it might have you given the current climate it looks like that could be for the next few years perhaps um will that risk be reviewed more frequently do you think? I think a lot of the financial risks to them are going to need to be reviewed more frequently uh it's just a sort of situation we find ourselves in so I mean the risk register is is we do pretty much quarterly uh by offices so so they will look to review the risks uh but something like this I think yeah quarterly but at least really so because you know even in the last few weeks so so much has happened so and and you know there's nothing to stop us you know if there's something really significant happening there's nothing to stop us having a look at the risk now because you know obviously we need to have been in a timely fashion so yeah thank you any other comments or questions from members they do not see any hands raised so thanks to Peter Maddock for his report the committee has asked to approve the treasury management annual report um does anyone wish to vote against approval or abstain in which case I'll propose approval uh would someone like to second second thank you councillor Hales um could members give me their verbal agreement to approve this report excellent thank you very much the annual report is approved we now move to agenda item six which is the report on the council's whistleblowing policy they asked Jonathan Tully had been turned a laudit to present this report mr Tully thank you very much chair and uh good morning all I hope you're well um so we have a revised whistleblowing policy um the purpose of whistleblowing policy is to provide a procedure for our employees contractors councillors and also agency workers to be able to report any concerns they've got about wrongdoing risk or malpractice in a safe way um we've got a whistleblowing blowing framework in place um and what we've done we've reviewed that to make sure that continues to meet best practice standards and as a result of that we've updated the policy which is what we're bringing to you today the legislation um for whistleblowing is the public interest disclosure act and that hasn't changed in a number of years but we also work with protect the national whistleblowing charity and that gives us the opportunities part of our framework review to basically just pick up best practice and that's what's driven us to bring a revised policy to you today so we're looking for the committee to review the policy and approve it so the report starts on page 25 but hopefully with that introduction that provides an overview of what the policy is all about and so I'd probably bring your attention to page 26 which is the summary of changes made um so the policy's had a bit of a zero base review so we haven't brought one with track changes um so I've provided this table to basically help illustrate what what's developed since the previous version so we've reflected the latest terminology from protect um so this is mostly about language and making the document easier to read um we need to have more effective communication really when we present this to people so it needs to be easy to digest so hoping it achieves that and that it also provides some clarity around how concerns are handled when they're received because that's also good data protection management so people understand how their concern will be processed in terms of accessibility we've developed an online form which guides through people through the process of basically making a referral it can be a daunting time sometimes to to speak up and to help people provide the right information the first time this form should help them do that um in terms of engagement we're going to promote the revised policy amongst colleagues um and that will be lots of online articles at the council but we're also conscious that some of our colleagues we don't all work in front of computers each day um so to help make sure we have full engagement and reach out to other people we're also going to develop some posters to display around the premises so that should help uh with the the engagement there so I think briefly in conclusion um I think just worth recognising the policy it forms part of our council fraud and corruption work that forms part of overall governance arrangements so it makes good sense for this committee to to be involved with oversight of the policy uh and to help support it and approve it um so the policy is attached as an appendix um and I'm happy to take questions or comments they have thank you mr telly do any members have comments or questions cancer williams thank you chair and through yourself um so because this is something that we looked at as part of the anti-bullying task and finish group as well so it went through quite a review then um and one of the things that we talked about was that there's no point in having a you know policy if it's stuck in a drawer and nobody knows one thing we um discussed was about sort of just doing a sort of a check every every year or so but like we have to do planning and licensing training every every two years and that documents like this would people would have to confirm that they had seen it and everything else um and I was wondering whether that had been pursued because we that was with the anti-bullying policy and everything else that was going with it and when you say about posters um it's going to sound like a random request but could we make sure that they are in private places such as toilets and that is because if you are one of the things we were talking about when we were doing the anti-bullying and looking at the lga code of conduct was there's no point in main reception having their poster about whistleblowing because everybody would have been too scared they'll be seeing at it taking down the number um it sounds like a very simple thing but actually it has a big impact on how effective it is turning to the document itself on page 32 we have the steps to raise concerns and quite rightly there is um a sentence on how to raise a concern relating to a councillor what isn't particularly clear is what is for a councillor to raise concern about an officer um and I do think that that should be included so that we can make sure that we are raising things if there are internal issues that we've become aware of that we can raise them in the appropriate manner and we're not actually leaving somebody that perhaps is you know experiencing difficulties making life worse for them so I did feel that that's something that is is missing um you know and I hope more we won't be too busy with complaints about us um chair but uh but yes if we could look at that and also um I see with you know we talk about um people that are doing agency work and will have you being able to access this as well but equally contractors um and how do you have a third party for example was to visit this council and and see something they're only here for a few days they see something they're really uncomfortable with how do they fit into this this situation or is there something that we need to do to help third parties more because the the point of this is quite often actually when you're in a situation and you're living it day in day out I think many councils can empathise with this you then start to sort of almost normalise it um and actually sometimes it takes somebody that's not normal you know not your normal day-to-day routine that will will identify things um not suggesting of course chair that all this is going on but you know we want a good policy um to support our officers thank you chair I think I saw four points there Mr Tully did you note them all down I did thanks yes and so I suppose going through those in order the first one was about getting employees to acknowledge that they've read the policy I'm going to have to take that one away I don't know what the the local practice and protocol is but I'm happy to to fit back to the committee on that the second point was around displaying the posters in sensible locations and private locations yeah I that's a brilliant suggestion I totally agree with that um so thanks very much um we'll definitely take that into consideration um the third point was around just tweaking the text a little bit to make sure that um if a council wants to raise a concern uh about an officer so I'm happy to to make uh that amendment that that's uh sensible I don't think that's that's a big ask um and the fourth one was around third parties um yeah and I recognize that um as as a as sensible points as well um with third parties we also have the complaints process which would probably normally be there the correct routes for them to to raise concerns but if they did raise a concern to me I would obviously take that on board um I mean whistle blowing is built around the public interest disclosure act and the main function of that is to basically safeguard sort of internal colleagues who raise concerns so it's really about helping them to have the confidence to speak up and feel they're not going to uh you know get in trouble for speaking up they will be sort of protected and we can't offer that sort of protection to third parties but I've always got a sort of open door for hearing about concerns um and you probably see that what we do sort of talk about in the policy is that people don't always know the right route about how to report concerns so we do have this sort of sort of triage type approach where if it's more appropriate that it gets dealt with through a different policy or a different route we will we will then pass that on and we'll inform the person who's raised the concern that's the best way for it to be handled but the door's open for people to raise concerns so hopefully that answers that sort of fourth point thank you um councillor Williams no follow-up no you'll be pleased to hear chair no follow-up from me today thank you um councillor Stobart yes thank you chair so um I've set a question to kind of follow along from that um what about the individual who observes something going wrong and then has to go through approaches a bit like I suppose you're going to the doctor I'm ill I'm going to the doctor so that same kind of threshold has to be crossed there is something wrong I need to talk to somebody about it so um I wondered if there was first of all a kind of informal approach that could be made so I'm thinking who are the people involved who would I approach I think in in budding harassment policies there is a group of independent what I call wise heads we're clearly and there may be several in the organisation covering different areas and that's important because they're you know recognised to be well away from the area that you're going to talk about so first of all uninformal am I going mad or is this actually something that's going wrong kind of dialogue once it does actually begin and once you cross that threshold you really want to know what's going on and um I mean for some people it might be quite straightforward but for others that's a worrying thing you know is this career limiting I think that's that's already addressed um I can think of situations in my past where I would have backed away from from this because of threat to career um so there will be always that and I think it's the time scales um so you will get a response within a week and and that's committed to and that's very reassuring to the individual um and the person that they interact with is that person recognised trustworthy um there was a person in organisation um who handle the case very wisely and she was in a very different function she had a reputation for independence and robustness and people loved that um so um I think that detachment that assurance of detachment and that assurance that this will happen in a timely way very important to the success of the process because that kind of gets into the culture that says it's okay um now of course this should not happen in the council very often but when it does it should be handled in this excellent and timely and reassuring way um so yeah I I I agree that's got to be absolutely our aspiration um to handle things in an excellent timely way and provide people with assurance that the process is robust um and I recognize your points about you know the detachment um and people then having the confidence uh to do that um I suppose what I would I would talk about I mean I'm in my role as head of internal audit I am a very independent role um and the inquiries will come through to me in the first instance so they should have confidence um because of my role that it's it's coming through to a safe place but I would also add you know what we would hope to develop as a positive culture in the organisation in terms of speaking up that people can go and speak immediately to their line manager if they have a concern um that's a very sensible route and a healthy route to to progress it you know as a as a first course of action really and then that's what we'd want rather than have to go through the whole sort of whistleblowing process but it's important that it's there should we need that thank you councillor Stilbert for the following okay thank you and in case I have councillor Hales thank you good morning Jonathan um Jonathan um there's been some really brilliant suggestions actually I hope you this morning um reference to councillor Williams regarding posters in private places in my opinion I just wonder if there's going to be any room on this poster to have the modern day equivalent of the qr code for instantly access a particular web page where it has every single link that you can think of that we should put up and if you recall we discussed a while back um about the policy itself holding links to the the if you like the staff whistleblowing processes because the two link across with each other so if we have all of our whistleblowing policies linking with each other so no one no one can be in any doubt they've got the right document and all of the help that they might be able to access and on page through 33 it's got independent advice the heading sorry independent advice external monitoring and oversight and data but the one that was missing for me was internal um so it's not obvious if you like so I wonder if that if there's any merit in making it as blindingly obvious as possible thanks thank you um so the qr codes is a good idea I like that that's I'll be on I'd not consider that I will take that away I don't think that should be too tricky I can't say for sure so I'll definitely look into that for the posters it's a good idea um yes the policy I think we've discussed this before and I think that would be a good sensible addition to uh linking to other lots of policies that we have there will be HR policies and also counter fraud policies and in this policy we do highlight that there may be other routes which we might want to progress once a query comes in it might be better dealt with under sort of grievance or bullying and harassment for example um I think the the nature of whistleblowing inquiries is such that you never know what's going to come in so we wouldn't be able to list every single policy out there but they're certainly I think it's a good idea they're going to be some key policies which should be very sensible to include um so we'll make reference to that on all the promotion um and the third point can I just seek a little bit more clarification on that one if it's okay so this was around the independent advice was this in the on page 33 was this the external contact section you were thinking about yeah you've got independent advice external contacts monitoring oversight and in the data protection I just I wonder if there was you've got the idea how we handle the matter and what have you in the two pages beforehand where it talks about internal so to speak I was just wondering if there was any merit him it doesn't have to be but if there's any merit to just have the internal route because sometimes people look for the obvious if they are they're worried so they would they would go how do I do that internally yeah yeah okay I can I can see your point I'm happy to take that one away and reflect upon that in terms of clarity yeah thanks thanks for clarifying thank you chair um I was just going to get the section about independent advice and when I read through the policy it took a long time before I found that bit about the independent advice so I wondered whether it'd be possible to move that ahead in the in the document so that if someone was considering what to do that they saw that quite early on if that was something that might help them if they were feeling anxious or vulnerable if they saw something which was independent that might give them um if they saw that early on in the document rather than reading reading that might be the first thing that they wanted to do rather than it being at the bottom of the the bottom of the policy and also whether that could be included on the posters as as another option okay yeah absolutely yeah we'll definitely include that on the posters for sure because the independent advice that we always refer to is the national whistleblowing charity protect um and that that's their role and function is to be there and help advise people about whistleblowing um so yeah we'll definitely put that on the poster I'll have a look at the text um and and see if we can do a signpost link to the other section of that policy lower below so they can see about that yeah I'll have a look at that you cancel anything or perhaps just if the charity protect has its graphic you know like a small imprint in the document or something something that just makes it visible that this is an independent organisation and that they're outside and that this is their professional expertise perhaps just like a you know a picture of an imprint with their logo might make it more might make it stick out more thank you yeah yeah I'm happy to have a chat to protect about the use of a logo on there um and then this is based on this sort of model guidance for writing a policy so I hope they will be supportive of that yeah thank you councillor hails Jonathan just going back to the qr code this might be a trip downstairs to the it section for having a web page which is dedicated purely to this but actually the qr code I thought that was running through my head was that it will direct someone to a web page which may have the poster or the icons of the very the whole the whole lot on that one web page so all of the information that that person can just click quickly on a quick trip to the loo I don't think very much they get it they go away they can deal with it on their own quietly in private which bears out the council Williams and cancer leemies point thank you okay any more comments or questions from members the committee is asked to approve the whistleblowing policy we've made quite a few requests for modifications additions is anyone wishing to vote against the whistleblowing policies it stands or want to abstain yes go ahead councillor Williams um I just think we should a lot of suggestions have been made and some alterations agreed to being made so if I can just suggest that we have the recommendation that we approve it subject to the um amendments that we've requested as opposed to as it stands in the papers chat excellent suggestion councillor Williams is everyone agreement with that yep okay yes um in which case I will propose approval of the policies subject to the amendments discussed today could I have a seconder for that please looks like me again or councillor Williams get to your ideas just rich change thank you so that is approved subject to amendments we can then move on to item seven on the agenda an update on governance risk and control I ask mr tally again to present this report thank you chair um this is our regular item on the agenda it's just a topical report on governance risk and internal control um and it's just a highlight of things which have been happening over the last quarter um I'll hopefully it's easy to digest uh but I'll just draw out a couple of key points for from me on page 38 and the internal audit update so a few things that I wanted to highlight was in terms of internal audit reviews that we've completed we uh completed a review of the financial management code it was the first time we've done that order at the council and that's because the financial management code is a new requirements for councils to demonstrate compliance and good governance in finance and so it's it's pleasing to see that we uh we've provided full assurance on that report um we did identify a couple of low level recommendations nothing really of huge significance but it will just help um develop things like the medium term financial strategy going forwards but overall very good um the other one that I would want to draw your attention to is legal services um we completed a follow-up review there um the previous audit report was limited assurance and there was an action plan agreed we're pleased to say that all of those actions have been implemented so as a consequence we've been able to improve the assurance rating from limited up to full assurance so that's that's positive um and the other one I would just highlight is carbon management data quality um it's a review that we're doing every year now um environmental audits are very important um summary from this it's the fourth year that we've we've done this and worked with them and we can see uh during these audits that basically processes have improved and data quality has improved so again it's it's an improvement last year it was reasonable assurance we've now been able to provide full assurance on that so that's that's positive on page 40 we do provide an overview of audits work and progress and what's coming up um the I've probably highlighted there actually there's one audit we're probably expecting to conclude this week which is the disabled facility grant process so that's that's a positive and we've got a few other reviews in train um on page 41 um there's the regular counter fraud updates and what I'd highlight there is we took on board the advice on the committee and feedback uh from the last meeting and hopefully all the acronyms have been expanded now to to explain what they are so hopefully that's a little bit more useful uh even I get confused by the acronyms sometimes so um and then on page 45 um just under the training developments section were there sort of two really things to highlight uh both really in the fraud uh environments um the public sector fraud authority has been launched by central governments worth being aware of that um it's the basic help counter fraud uh work in the public sector it is predominantly focused at central government but we would expect good practice to check all down uh to local government too um so that was pretty much uh the key points I wanted to draw out of the report happy to take any comments or questions and I'm sure it's a joint report please for myself be happy to answer thank you Mr Tully uh Councillor Williams uh thank you chair through yourself um I'm looking mainly at page 43 here um one thing that uh I just wanted to maybe put a personal view across is that um obviously we can see on the closure reason uneconomical to investigate um I'm perhaps a bit stern on this chair in that if people have defrauded the taxpayer um I think there is an obligation on our part to do it um that may sometimes we have to be prepared say that that costs us but there is a a principle to the matter um and also we will never know what um impact a deterrent has if we are seen to be enforcing so if anybody's looking at this report and thinking about it um if we can give our full commitment that we will pursue people um if they have defrauded the taxpayer um in relation to the live investigations I mean that is a considerable amount and I think we can all foresee that in the current climate it's probably going to increase so I'm just going to ask around our resources um and how we're how we're dealing and coping with with the volume at present chair thank you Mr Lodd yeah thank you um so the report is at the position at the 30th of June and we had seen quite an increase in the number of live cases and we're still seeing more live cases come in um the committee were happy to support getting a temporary investigator in to try and clear some of the backlog um now that person's been with us since probably early June and we have seen some good progress on the backlog I've certainly seen quite a few cases come to closure in recent weeks but as quickly as we're closing when we're seeing we come back we're seeing additional cases coming in so I think that is that is the situation we are seeing more referrals um and every referral we get we have to at least do a cursory look at it even if it appears to be a a scholars referral which we do get from time to time so yeah there was a lot of work in the team and um whilst the temporary investigator has made some good progress there's a concern that um the increase we're seeing will actually be a bit more ongoing thank you chair in with that in mind in the comments that have been made um as has been said before we've we've supported a temporary can I suggest that we express our support for a permanent um member of staff as opposed to temporary and uh and a review and if more resources are needed for that department then they should be should be allocated um that would be my thoughts chair thank you um actually myself was more concerned by the 810 fraud proven but no further action um one case but that definitely seems a little worrying if there was fraud but we've taken uh no further action yeah I'd have to look at the detail behind that case okay councillor thank you chair um and through you I I raised some last time um and I wondered if you made any progress on establishing what the carbon emissions associated with my tea systems um might be um especially since we went into a shared system with other local authorities thanks I think I think that's for me um I don't have a final conclusion on that yet but we did take that away and we have started to to look into that aspect of it yes we noted that from from the last committee happy to provide a further feedback on that thank you thank you um councillor Stilbart chair I also had a question around carbon management but it was a kind of general question I could hang my comments on the carbon management um I wondered um let's tell you where does the um measurement standard come from are there norms that we need to follow and in choosing the norms and the measurement techniques and the data data handling and so on are there choices to be made as to how rigorous how robust um because I guess this is an area of you know where standards are emerging all the time and being adapted what's the rationale for the choice and how do you look for triggers you know which which might perhaps change policy slightly to make it more accurate or more robust sure um so I the the initial standards probably rolling back maybe I want to say maybe about 10 to 15 years ago were published in the public sector when there were best performance value indicators about things to measure and that sort of performance sort of like baseline so you know public sector councils did have a bit of an idea to start with um but it was voluntary over recent years when we started our process so a lot of our data quality assurance was really around um challenging the data looking at how it's been collected um making sure it's accurate um questioning where assumptions had to be made and whether it's possible to get live real-time data um and that was quite probing and challenging because it is very very complex to to calculate carbon emissions and that I think internally we you know improved our own developed process for recording that data but what we're starting to see now you're absolutely right is becoming more of a standard and we're starting to see the local government association um through um central government functions provide more standards around what to expect in carbon management so we've sort of like committed to to follow those as well so yes standards are sort of there and they're continually emerging and developing just a brief brief follow up question to that um so sometimes these you know the quality of data is dependent upon the quality of the assumptions that are made do you keep a log of assumptions that you might then update as um you know was perhaps new circumstances emerge or you just have a fresh insight into a process that's being monitored well we wouldn't keep that log of the of the assumptions that would be a sort of like data held by the team themselves um but when we're talking about assumptions with um perhaps meter readings that's a really simple example we can all grapple with um we're a loss of us are used to having smart meters now um rather than working off estimates but there were still at sort of like during the beginning of this process perhaps meters which are still working on estimates so data probably wasn't 100 accurate until the final sort of bills come in so you you're taking measurements at a point in time but we are seeing more moving to smart data and recording energy yeah thank you country hails uh thank you jonathan um as the years rolled by year after year after year i'm gradually noticing that the old eyes that i have to all mentor glasses are gradually failing me and i'm looking at some of these charts the the black and blue ones which are purgatory frankly to look at and i'm also getting neckache having to turn my head to have a look at them on my computer so i just wonder whether or not someone in the graphics department might be able to do something different with them so that they could be more easily read the data can all be spread out horizontally if you like but it just makes it a bit more user friendly and i won't have to complain about my eyes and my stiff neck thanks thank thank you council hails no absolutely when we started doing this this sort of report it was a request the committee and it's to help keep you informed and we welcome feedback at every every stage and opportunity uh yeah i can take that away personally and have a look at that no worries thank you um we don't all cancel a hails complaining so please take what action you get as i'll leave my bones are old thank you chair and through you and um um uh yes apologies for returning to the same theme but um quite often um overlooked in carbon accounting is the the sort of embedded carbon and um so um i wondered um if you could sort of explain what we do around that i mean for example um an obvious example would be the work we've done in the carpark because it's a um a very um good story to tell there in terms of ongoing carbon savings but you know we accounting for the embedded carbon cost of that um and if not perhaps perhaps we should going forward look at that as well as the ongoing savings okay i'd have to take that question away uh if it's okay with you councillor and so seek clarification on that thank you are there any any other questions or comments from members on the update you see no hands um in which case i'll thank jonathan tully for his report which the committee has asked to note and i think we have duly noted it at this point we can move on to the next agenda item which is matters of topical interest report on order to fees which i think need a matter you'll be presented thank you um so um following the last meeting this committee um i had a meeting with e y around the fees uh they had provided me with a bit more detail on the make up of the sorry this is 18 19 fees so they provided me with a bit more detail breakdown of those fees um and there were a couple of areas that um i think needed looking at those in relation to the overruns and those in relation to the asset register so following my meeting with uh with them i also met with the public sector audit appointments and they're the body that's at hold the contracts with local authority auditors so whilst um the auditor works on our accounts their contract is with the public sector audio appointments so there's like a three way sort of arrangement and one of the reasons for that is that the public sector audit appointments authority part of their remit is to look at audit fees review them where there's uh there's any issues and quite clearly um the fee issue that we have needs to be reviewed by them and that's the process that they're carrying out as we speak so they will be looking through uh some information that e y provided the council have also provided some information and um when i spoke to them they were at the view that um the review would probably take a couple of months so we should have the outcome of that for the next meeting um the review itself um is binding on both uh us and e y so um i'm hopeful that after that with that process we will get a settlement that's fair and reasonable um and um i think pretty much all audit audit fee overruns are dealt with by them and they will get they will give a ruling so um that's where we are with that at the moment and um let's say we should get the response hopefully within the next sort of okay yes thank you council Williams thank you chair and through yourself um i think this if i recall this committee supported going to the psaa so i'm pleased to see that's happening and if we could be when an update is um found we could be updated in it circulated to all members of the committee um i'm just going to look at the supplement to the supplement um and um obviously some some wording we can see the track changes um which suggests that there wasn't agreement between e y and this council so i'm just wondering who was the party that didn't agree as we now have it felt so i'm assuming did both sides feel if they but they didn't agree um it just seems a very very odd thing that somebody has gone to the trouble to want to alter this report on something so minor so i think it would help us if we could understood what side wasn't in agreement because i hope the council was in full agreement to go to the psaa that's what i'm verifying um and uh yeah i mean the subsequent words is just just it's just bizarre um to have something like that come through so um who's who's not happy in this arrangement i think is my question um and i do have another separate matter of topical interest but happy to deal with them in turn if you so wish chair so um i know that it wasn't that either side was unhappy i mean following the meeting with them e y um we were both in agreement that the psaa needed to look at it i think the wording in the original report didn't make it clear that um it was a matter of course that the psaa would actually review the fees i think the way it was written suggested uh that um they would only look at it if we asked them to and i don't i think the wording was just trying to make it clear that you know because of the level of the fee you know they were duty bound to review it um and both us and e y were happy for them to do that but i said from our meeting obviously um we're not happy with the fees you know that they're proposing so the only reason what caused an action is to get the psaa to review it and come back with their their view on it thank you chair so it appears there is agreement but we can't use the word agreed um on my other topic of interest or matter of topic of interest um it's toolkit i did so might not answer it but i have seen it now um and the proposal and i think it would be very very useful and um those uh more i've got councillor mark powlers here and he'll know that toolkit has been said in every meeting since 2018 please if only to just shut me up can we please do the toolkit um so we can do our bit to show that we are taking seriously our responsibilities and like all professional jobs we are well trained thank you chair does seem to very reasonable request that's fine yeah i'd certainly be interested in it in a bit more feedback on okay does anyone else have any comments or questions for mr maddo um moving on to any additional matters i think we've talked about treasury management training for members can you give us an update on that yeah so um um my colleague is is in the process of arranging this with our treasury advisors link um we're thinking probably november would be the time and whether whether we tie in with the same day as his committee or do except the day i'll be interested in members thoughts really on that and i think the preference will be to do an in-person training session and again i think that's their preference as well so some fairly complex issues and i think it would probably work better in person if members are happy with that but we're looking at some some point in there then thank you um yeah i'd certainly um prefer in-person training and if you could give us some some alternate updates that would be that would be perfect yeah thank you does anyone have any additional matters they wish to raise today gyrnodd. Well um i suppose this probably does come under purview of um this committee but i was just intrigued by um council william's discovery that there were sort of track changes so um that really shouldn't happen um i i guess should it because anything that uh goes into the public domain should should be turned into a pdf verse because um really um allowing possibly information to kind of be invisible which um no no i didn't okay so so is that oh okay yeah like so so was that in that was intended to be published rather than um i'm just i'm just sort of querying whether just want to have to turn track changes on to see that or is that highlighted oh okay okay yeah in that case i think my point is um there's not a little one but my my my sort of worry was that um this had been a a word document in in which um there was hidden information which um should should be seen but um that's okay so okay i'm sorry about that no problem counsellor hi i'll be counsellor leming thank you chair um i'd like to ask mr mudok please um about progress with the current audit that's been undertaken thank you so um the 2019-20 audit recommends this week um we have asked the auditors to concentrate their resources on the asset register that's the key piece of work uh the most complex piece of work of the audit and they've confirmed that they have a colleague looking at that um so um i haven't got anything specific other than that they've started work again um we have had some queries back of them which we're responding to so it seems to be going ahead as expected um the intention is that the audit gets completed by the end of october or possibly early november um we haven't got a hard and fast date on that because it depends what if anything comes out of the audit that's um but hopefully you know it seems to be progressing at the moment so that's good thank you very much for that update and your work thank you thank you does anyone else have any matters they wish to raise okay i see no hands um in which case i will note the date of the next meeting is thursday of the first of december at 10am and i will move to close today's meeting thank you all for your contribution