 마�nod rydw i, mae'r cymdeithasol, neu'r cymdeithasol sy'n cyfnodd yn gweithio'r tengwlad ar y henan. Fel ydych chi'n gweithio ar y gweithio ar y cymdeithasol a'r Gwbryd Ddiwylliannol. Ac mae'r gweithio yn cyhoedd, Michael Atkins, ac rwy'n gweithio ar y gweithio. Mae'r gweithio eich gweithio yn y gymaint, ac mae'n meddwl sy'n gweithio'r gweithio'r gwybod? ac mae'r cyfnodd ar y cyfnodd ar gyfer y ffordd. Rydyn ni'n gwneud bod y camera ydych chi yw byddwn yn y cwmysgol. Rydyn ni'n gweithio i fod yn ddweud gyda'r camera. Rydyn ni'n fwyfyr i'r gweithio ar y ffordd a'r ffordd, rydyn ni'n dweud y byddwch chi yw gweithio ar y chat gallu ac rydyn ni'n dweud yn digwydd y chat gallu ddwy'r cwmysgol. Rydyn ni i fod yn y cwym ni'n gweithio ar gyfer, ac mae'n trafnio'r mïcfwneidio i chi bobl ymlaen, fyddai'n bod yn cael ei bwysigol. Felly mae'r fân yn cael ch owners edrych yn eu collidol gyda chi'n trafnio a gyd yn ei bwysigol. Felly ydych chi i'r cyffredin iawn ar ddim yn ddim yn cael chi'n corffodd a'r mïcfwneidio'r mwyaf. A'u fyddech chi'n raen fyddi, am lŵn llwyd, mae'n rhaid i chi'n rhaid o'r mian ar gyfer mae'n chweinydd i ei ddweud i hwnngelliant, maes diolch yn ymddydd i'ch gweithio ddylch yn ymddorol, ei隊wch a bydd nhw'n cael nhw, a chymwyddiwe, ar gyd wedi'i gwneud yr ymddorol. 1, yn ymgyrch o agendaeth, mae'n ddod o bobl Llywodraeth Ffantrac. Byddai'r holl o bobl o bobl o bobl o bobloedd o bobl o bobl? yn cyfreunio defnyddio'n winodol ar gyflugio, pan yn y byddiol wedi, mae'n gyflugio i colli gweithio iedd unig o'r cyfrif er mwyn i'r ddymiau, wedi rhaid i gael ddweud. Yr ymddydd o'r byddiol, rwy'n ddweud ar gliriaf, wrth gwrs, yn Llyfrgellol o'r cwrtyniadau o'i gwybeth ar gweithio'r teimlo, ond mae'n hawdd iddiol yn ysgrifennu'n gwneud yn dechrau'r cyfrif fel yr ymddydd. Yr ymddydd yma, mae'r dweud gan cyfryd cyfrif. as a director of South Cams Limited Trading as Imen Street Homes. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Amford. Councillor Stobart. Sorry, councillor Williams. Thank you, Chair. I'm a member of the Grace Cange Partship Assembly and this financial transactions recorded in relation to them in these gender pack. Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Stobart. Thank you, Chair. I would like the committee to note that I am a director of South Cambridgeshire Investments partnership and South Cambridgeshire projects to partnerships in which the council has a 50% stake. Thank you, Councillor Stobart. Minutes of the previous meeting, I think a few members wish to raise one or two corrections. Thank you, Chair. It's just in relation to the final page of the minutes, which is page 9, item 10, matters of topical interest. It's not the Treasury Management Toolkit, it's the Audit Efficiency Toolkit, which I imagine. Get it ready, Patrick. I'll be asking again for an update of that as a topical interest. The other thing is in relation to the independent chair. Chair, I'm sure you'll recall better than I what you said in the meeting, but I don't believe we were invited to offer potential candidates. I think that might cause a few issues if we were to do that, mainly we would question their independence, so I think that might just be a bit of an error there, but one thing that hasn't been recorded, which I raised at that point of meeting, was that we had previously done work in looking at options for an independent chair of the committee, but it could be an independent person on the committee. I don't want you to feel that your position is in jeopardy chair, but that might be a good starting block rather than just completely starting from scratch. It may not be entirely relevant, but it would be a good basis for us to start looking at those options again if we wish to explore it, which hasn't quite been captured in the minutes. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, councillor. My recollection of my remarks, and I admit I've not checked back the recording, but under the issue of an independent member, I think I invited members of the committee to consider how they would envisage the process working and what kind of criteria they would seek to have for an independent member rather than direct sort of putting candidates forward. So perhaps the minutes could be amended to reflect that. Thank you. Could we also add on page 7, on the first page of the minutes, I believe councillor John Williams was in attendance remotely, so if that could be added to the minutes. Also I think it's a little confusing to list Mr Tully under the section of auditors. For whilst he is an auditor, he is an employee of the council and whether he would be better in the officer's category. It may be that that's where we always put him, but it struck me that on reviewing it, that it's perhaps best to reflect that he is, although an auditor, he is the internal auditor and therefore an officer of the council. Thank you. I appreciate, and I think you're right to ask for the distinction of internal auditor, but my understanding is that Mr Tully works for one of the shared services and isn't actually a direct officer of this council. It's very complex isn't it, we've got the different services, for example, but I think if we had the word internal auditor, here is Mr Tully, he's going to define his role hopefully, then that may help. So he's actually employed by the City Council, Cambridge City Council? Yes. Mr Tully, do you agree that you are represented correctly as it stands? Thank you, Chair, for highlighting it. I don't really have anything to add that it's correct. I'm an employee of Cambridge City Council, which is a shared service. Personally, I have no preference where I appear on that report. It's a historical convention at South Cams. If the committee wanted to move it to a section, I would be happy with that. Okay, well, happy then perhaps to leave it where it is. Let's just make sure that that's clear in the minutes. Were there any other comments on the minutes before I move on? No, thank you very much. I move the approval of the minutes subjects to the corrections that we've just outlined. Thank you. Any objections? Fantastic. Item 4 invites the committee to discuss the external audit result report for 2019-20. Could I ask Ms Dawson and Mr Russell to please present this report? Thanks very much, Chair. So yes, this is our audit results report for the audit of the 1920 accounts. I'm very pleased to say that we are substantially complete with the work that we need to do to be able to provide you with an audit opinion. Subject to a small number of areas that are still outstanding, which Mr Russell will take us through in a moment, we anticipate issuing an unqualified audit opinion on the financial statements. We will, in our reference to value for money, include a qualified conclusion on the arrangements in place during the year of 1920. And it will probably be of no great surprise to the committee that that will again be around the arrangements that were in place during the year to be able to produce and publish financial statements in accordance with the regulations and the timing set out in those. Because we have, as I say, talked at some length about some of those difficulties that were experienced at that point, and therefore the knock-on impact as to why we're recording at this stage for the 1920 financial year. So on page 5, we set out some background and context as to the trajectory of improvement that the organisation has been on in terms of being able to improve its processes to produce financial statements and also to respond to the audit queries. And I am pleased to say that we have seen quite a marked improvement over just the life of this audit as well. So just every now and again we do get into a position where there's some clarity needed, some explanation as to quite what we're looking for, but officers have worked really closely with us. And even in the last couple of weeks since producing the report, we've made some substantial progress. So, you know, the team is to be commended for their work and their support to the audit to get us to this position. I'll just take you on to our page 6 and 7, which highlights the work that we've done against the significant risks that we've identified in our audit plan and the conclusion of each of those areas. And you'll note in particular there are three areas that I wanted to bring to your attention, where we have identified that adjustments are required to the statement of accounts, which we anticipate management will put through on the final version. So on capital accounting entries, we did identify one audit adjustment of 1.08 million that needs to be adjusted. On valuations of investment property, there's an adjustment of 0.8 million that requires to be put through. And we've also identified on valuation of other land and buildings and housing assets, one audit difference of 0.58 million in terms of housing assets that needs to be adjusted. But as I say, we anticipate that management will put those through. So Prept, if I hand over to Mark to just to talk us through the last few areas that are outstanding. Thank you. So at the back of our report, so from page 50 is the status of our audit, so this follows on from the report and the progress we brought to committee pre-Christmas. So if I just take you through where we are with those items, that should give you the position of the audit as it stands. So on page 53, these are the audit procedures substantially completed. So this report was written at the back end, mid to back end of last week. So we have made progress against these items now. So just working down briefly then. So the provisions line, we are still trying to finalise this area in particular, the provision raised around the north stone. And on NNDR appeals provision, we have queries still remaining with the council to respond to. The group accounts we've now completed and there's no findings to report to this committee. We've completed the next section down, which is the disclosures. So this includes exit packages and senior officers remunerations. Again, this works now complete with nothing to report. HRA expenditure, we are awaiting some payroll information to be able to complete this work from officers. The reserves, two reserve sections, we haven't completed that work yet because we're waiting for an updated set of accounts because some of the adjustments that are required to the accounts have an impact on those reserves and the movements in them. Creditors, the only outstanding areas and recorded liabilities testing. And again, this is with the council and we're waiting for a response on those. Related parties, this work is finished and there's nothing to report in regards to the related parties work and then if we move to page 54. So the bad debt provision, again, now completed, nothing to report. Employee costs, we have some queries outstanding with management again and we're waiting for responses on those to allow us to finish that work. And the disclosure checklist, again we need the updated version of the accounts to rerun the disclosure checklist to make sure it's in line with the SIP for code of practice. And then the final page of 55. So those elements that are listed out there, we can't complete to this point until the rest of the work is finished as a standard process. Thank you. Thank you. That was a very helpful and clear update on exactly where we stand today. Do members of the committee, well first of all perhaps Mr Maddock, did you want to make any comments at this stage before I open to the committee for questions? Not particularly other than to echo what's been said. I think communication has improved quite significantly but I think we do recognise there still were one or two issues where there was a little bit of clarification required but otherwise I think it's a fair reflection pretty much. Thank you Mr Maddock. Councillor Howell and then Councillor Williams, thank you. Thank you Chairman, just the one question. It's directed towards, I'm going to say Mr Maddock, that end of the table should I say that. Not you Patrick, you're okay, I'll say for this one. With regards to what was commented upon with regards to 53 and some of the outstanding audits are waiting for information from the council. With what you know at the moment, do you foresee any issues or any problems given that information to the auditors or is the information just there getting the staff time to do it? Thank you Chairman. Now I don't see any issues at all. Thank you Councillor Williams. Thank you Chair, you'll be pleased to know that my list is short of a normal. First of all, can I just ask, follow on from Councillor Howell's question about what we're waiting for. I heard things about payroll. I don't know if we have that in house or it's... You alright there? We don't know if we have it in house or external so I'm just wondering in any of these occasions is it a third party that we're requiring information from because obviously that can make it a bit harder to meet deadlines but hopefully it will all be in house. Secondly, on page 40 about the 2018-19 fees if we've got an idea when we might have a final determination date from either EY or ourselves, I very much appreciate an answer to it and we have the scale fee and some assurance from EY that the fees won't be as high this year on the basis of what they've seen so far. And lastly Chair, it was very nice to hear of the team being commended for the way they're working. We don't always get to hear that and it was a nice surprise and change Chair, thank you. Thank you, Councillor Williams. Mr Maddock, perhaps you can pick up on the extent which we're relying on third parties. Yes, so the number of the queries are HR related so they will be providing the information. We may need some information from Payroll who are a shared service with the city but I don't anticipate having any. Yes, I believe we were going to cover this under the matter of topical interest, do you want to keep it then or do you want to? I mean I was in contact with the PSAA yesterday. They still do have one or two things to iron out so they haven't quite finished. I did also ask them about the level of work that they're undertaking just out of interest really and they are saying that they're working through a number of similar issues with other authorities as well. I think just to say I think they have got quite a lot of these ongoing issues with others as well so it's not just us but he did endeavour to get the information sorted out as soon as he possibly can. Thank you. Did you want to come back on any of those points to Councillor Williams or shall I move on to other members? Thank you Chair, just one that was probably for EY to answer about going forward it references fees on whether we should expect to see a lower fee based on what they've seen for the 2020 accounts. Thank you. I appreciate you haven't started your audit plan yet for the following year but is there any comment you'd like to make to the committee on the future of the sort of likely level of fees? Thanks Chair. I think Councillor Williams was asking about the 1920 fees as well, weren't you? This one, yeah. So we don't anticipate that they'll be of the same scale as 1819 given the change in the system that had taken place for the financial, sorry, the asset register which caused a lot of the difficulties. And so you'll note from our exceptions that we've identified just two adjustments within the fixed assets and the investment properties this year rather than our whole wrath last year. So we don't anticipate to see the same scale but we're not quite finished yet so once we've done that we'll then share our estimate with Mr Medic and then let's see what happens for 2021. Thank you Chair. I shall in that case hold my breath in hope that the fees will be reduced this year. Thank you Councillor. Councillor Leaming I believe you're indicated to speak. Thank you Chair. I have one very specific question these of the auditors which is do they have an idea of when this work will be completed just weeks or days how much time will be needed please. The second thing is I would like to echo people's comments that they're very pleased to have confirmation that these have improved. I think that's a really good sign for all of us and I'd like to thank the offices for their work. My final point is relating to a comment on page 34 which is in the area of the assessment of the control environment and recommendations. There's a sentence which says that the auditors would recommend the re-evaluation and communication of the priority and importance of the financial reporting function of the council. I would like to object to this comment. I think that it's unjust. I think that all members all officers and particularly members of this committee are well aware of the importance of the financial reporting function and we will do all we can to support it. Thank you. Perhaps you could clarify what was meant by that comment and maybe a form of words that could perhaps express that differently. Certainly. More than happy to just explain what we were concerned about which was through the audit the emphasis that has been placed on the time and the resource available to be able to produce quality accounts and to support the audit. We have seen, as I said, a marked improvement but I think that it's important that the organisation and we've already agreed that we will work with the finance team to do this. We need to wash up to understand why they were in that position how they've come and what further improvements they need to make on that. I think we're on a journey. I don't think we're out of the woods yet and that's why we continue to emphasise the point around the prioritisation of the funding. It's not unique to South Cams. It's an issue that quite a lot of district councils are struggling with or councils are struggling with at the moment. I think it's important. It's only going to become more important and there's a lot of emphasis across the stakeholder community for local government but that is going to be important. I would like to keep that emphasis within our report but I'm happy to look at the wording. Thank you. I'm pleased that it expands that and explains that detail. That would be helpful. I would also like to admit that we are all aware of the importance of the financial reporting function of the council. Thanks. Thank you, councillor. I think perhaps in the final audit report if you can expand to the extent and I think what you said just now about this is a council that's been on a journey and clearly I think in the genesis of our current problems was a kind of redeployment of resources in the pandemic for kind of good and kind of sound reasons and I think something expanded that captured some more of that nuance would be welcomed by the committee if you can put that in place. Thank you. Thank you chair. In this as in other projects which involve co-operation of multiple parties we've talked about improvements in organisational performance but I think there's also improvements and changes in relationships, working relationships as part of that. We did mention the wash-up I think Janet you mentioned a wash-up session it would be great to know that lessons learnt have been as it were noted and actioned and I don't know is it my place as a member of the committee to say we would be interested to get a kind of an appreciation of that at a future meeting. Thank you councillor, yes. I think plans for a kind of wash-up meeting at the end of this audit are sort of forming essentially there's no kind of date and there's no schedule as yet but it's a priority of mine that some kind of wash-up session occurs after this audit and I will be keeping committee members informed about that and there may well be ways for the committee to participate in that as well to the extent that committee members wish to more detail forthcoming obviously at the moment the priority is finishing it but then as you say there are going to be lessons learned and I think it's important that those are reflected on. Councillor Williams I believe you indicated. Thank you, I would just say that it sounds like Councillor Stobart is asking for support of a toolkit perhaps of audit efficiency it sounded very very familiar so I thank him for the backup on that one and just to echo what Councillor Leaming said about the seriousness that councillors take we do take our roles very seriously we do them to the best of our ability and we put the council as objectives first we may have different ideas as to what is best for the council but that is the focus and I think any commentary or anything that would defer from that would be inaccurate unhelpful and you know just not acceptable we are accountable to residents if they don't like what we're doing they can vote us out why we have democratic process something that I was reminded is you're only in this job for as long as your residents will put up with you so I think that's quite quite enough judgement to be had on us and I'll trust my residents and I don't think that any language suggesting otherwise is appropriate so I'd echo the comments of Councillor Leaming. Thank you Councillor if there are no further comments there's one or two quick issues that I would like to raise can you just confirm auditors for me where there have been material corrections to the accounts have you undertaken further work in those areas and are you satisfied that those differences have arisen as a result of a one off mistake rather than anything more systematic? Yes thank you chair so as Janet alluded to some of the key findings we've had have been in PPE again so the misstatement of the 1.08 million was driven by a posting that shouldn't have happened to the fixed asset register so we undertook further work to assess that no similar errors crept into that process and the findings of that are that we can identify any other adjustments that have been unappropriately posted to the fixed asset register the other adjustment to the fixed asset register is just around the classification so that's the 0.8 million pound balance so that's the classification of it within how it sits within the comprehensive income and expenditure statement so essentially it just needs moving down from the top half of the statement down to the bottom and that is a one off item which just recalls the loss on valuation of investment properties so in that respect it is an isolated issue in regards to the small items shall we say where we're looking for adjustment again our testing shows that there's no other errors in those balances thank you that's I find that very reassuring obviously these are a complex set of accounts and the accounts are a wide range of businesses so errors do creep in and it's good that these were found but I'm glad that there's no evidence of any further issues in those areas a very quick question perhaps for Mr Maddick you noted I think one of the corrections were some beacon assets that had not been revalued during 1920 because I think something around the construction had finished that move class and they hadn't been passed to the external values I wonder have these assets have these assets since being valued a more kind of up to date number I'm just concerned there's a small chance they might have never got back on the list as it were so I wonder if I don't need an update now so it could come after the committee no problems we'll come back to that outside of committee any final comments on the audit update fantastic so we will await your final audit report and indeed the final accounts depending on when those are ready we'll either take those at our march meeting or if it's appropriate we may schedule an additional short meeting with one item on it just to approve those but I will be in contact with members I'm rather than trying to schedule something now I think when we know that everything is every T crossed and I dotted then we will consider the most appropriate way process that through this committee and give it our approval I think let's let me we've been asked to note this report and discuss it which indeed we have thank you very much and thank you to the young representatives for Johnston persons today it's much appreciated thank you agenda item 5 is the annual government statement and the local code of governance may I ask Mr Tully to please present this report thank you very much chair good afternoon everyone I'd like to take you through some of the highlights of the report we're now starting off on page 11 of your main committee packs so by way of backgrounds the accounts and audit regulations require the council to review its governance arrangements on a regular basis and we prepare an annual government statement which I sometimes refer to as the acronym AGS to accompany the statement of accounts and the purpose of the annual government statement is to communicate how we are complying with our local code of governance which I've also brought to you today it's definitely worth talking to you about timing of these documents the annual governance statement should reflect governance statements and matters in the financial year so we're looking at 2020-21 plus also up to the dates that the accounts signed and concluded so it does include quite a broad time period the previous annual governance statement 2019-2020 was approved by yourselves at the committee less than six months ago so it's probably not too much of a surprise that the governance arrangements have stayed very consistent within that time period however despite being a short period between this document it's a great opportunity to actually look back at what we did in that financial year and try and capture some of the things we've done which have contributed to the governance environment and we do that in the section that's called the review of effectiveness so the report talks about the AGS on page 13 and I'm going to ask you to do a little bit of navigation around the committee pack the statement itself is on pages 133-149 of your agenda packs hopefully you can find that okay because it's included in the statement of accounts there's quite a lot of pages today we didn't want to include it twice because if anyone did want to print the packs out there are a lot of paperwork but it is important that we have a separate agenda item to highlight that it needs to be approved in advance of the statement of accounts and that's because it's a legislative requirement so that's why we have that up first so with your approval we can progress the documents and it will then be reviewed by the external auditors as part of the statement of accounts work it's worth noting that should something material be identified as part of that review we would want to include it and we would of course update the committee so yes the annual governance statement itself starts on page 133 of your packs and I just want to draw out some of the key points of it on pages 137 we have roles and responsibilities and that's always a very important section because that sets out the key roles within the organisation that contributes to the governance environment there have been no significant changes from the previous report there moving on page 140 I just want to highlight the external audit section we do reference that when work has been done by the external auditors because it is a form of assurance just to note that there is a highlighted section there with regards to the results reports because when I prepared this we didn't know the date that it was going to come to the committee but of course we can now update that so that will be updated in the final version of the statement of accounts also on page 140 one thing which is perhaps new to previous years is the financial management code this is a new requirement that brings together a lot of existing guidance for accountancy in the public sector and it's about making sure there's adequate financial resilience so it brings together a lot of existing standards councils are required to be compliant from the next financial year which is 2122 but this year was a shadow year so the council had to start preparing for that what I'm pleased to say because we've moved on since that date we can already review that we are compliant with that and my teams and external auditors have completed an independent review so we can provide that assurance that we are compliant with the code and we reported that to the committee in one of our previous update reports in the last year so that's a positive also on page 140 is the impact of coronavirus this is an example of where we have to recognise significant events which happen outside of the financial year and you would have noted that we included that in our previous report for 2019-20 but of course this was a big year for the pandemic and it continues into the following financial year as well so we continue to make reference to that on page 141 we like to include an update since the previous statement that was brought to you it was just five months ago so there have not been lots of radical changes since that last report therefore items there and the last two I would say continue to be work in progress resources still continue to be a risk which needs to be managed in the public sector and also financial reporting we've spoken about already so they will continue as open actions and that's perfectly accessible that's fine on page 142 we get into the review of effectiveness and just as a refresher this is where we look back at what happened in the financial year and capture some of those highlights and what we like to do is group them by the actual principles of the code of governance so that helps us perform a gap analysis and make sure that we are contributing across all of those areas so that's where you'll see those groups by the different principles then on page 148 this is where we talk about opportunities for improvements and what could be happening over the next 12 months and then finally we get to page 149 which is the conclusion and opinion and that's where we note that we have in place strong governance arrangements that takes us to the end of the annual governance statement but I also want to talk about the local code of governance which accompanies it so to take you back to page 13 give you a moment to get there of our agenda pack I think that's where I introduce the local code of governance this is a document which is continually updated by the council it's an opportunity to really have codified, draw together lots of good practice and documents and policies which help contribute to a positive governance environment so we'd like to keep it updated I'd say some things will get picked up in real time I'd do my best to stay on stop of that and some things will get picked up for the review effectiveness that we complete through the annual governance statements so that's good it's a two-way process it's good to stay on stop of it we don't want it to sit on a shelf and be ignored so we bring it back to the committee as good practice it's on page 18 of your packs and what we've done just for ease of reference for your reviews track changes just to highlight where we have made changes or additions I think it's just additions on this occasion so to quickly highlight those page 18 we recognise that we now have an ethical handbook it's really good to include that in as a source of assurance because that really contributes well to that first principle A about ethics on page 23 of the packs there's two items there we include the corporate asset plan and also the zero carbon strategy because they were introduced in the financial year yeah and I think that's all of the changes but the one thing I always like to promote although there's been no changes to it is on page 33 towards the end of the document we have the seven principles of public life a very important thing that we all have to follow is either members or officers in the public sector to promote that so in summary for clarity members you have to approve the annual government statements in advance of the statement of counts that's why it's on the agenda as a separate item we've just approved the previous one less than six months ago but it's been a great opportunity to go through and see what we did in 2020-21 accompany the statement of counts which are later in the pack that's all I want to say and I'm happy to take comments or questions thank you very much Mr Tully councillor Williams you wanted to ask a question appreciation actually because we've got track changes which we haven't always had so thank you very much Mr Tully for taking that on board because I did use to tear my hair out a little bit trying to match where we changed and where we hadn't I'm sure others will have comments but overall it's very similar to what we've seen before and I'm happy to proceed with it and allow officers to get a nice replacement for the yellow question marks on page 140 thank you councillor councillor Howell thank you chairman I'm sure sometimes we this is more of a test to see if we read it and that's why we to show we've actually read it so on page I think there's a 42 of a small reference there to Cambon I think the population of Cambon has increased slightly so maybe that should be updated please and also on page 137 you have some scrutiny and overview which was already put out can we have something about the overview part of the scrutiny and overview committee as well please we always say about the scrutiny we always forget about its poor relation the overview section and that's all I ask thank you very much thank you Mr Tully you're happy to expand that section slightly in the Government statement I think we can delegate that to you to do with our approval are there any other comments from councillors on either the local Cabinet there, councillor Stobart thank you chair it's obviously a key document and it's well presented but I find it quite linear as a document it's quite linear it is a list of what does the council do and what is the supporting evidence and quite a lot of what the council does in fact probably sure of all working systems tends to be somewhat iterative with feedback loops and corrected processes you can't capture that in a document like this this is a document which says states a purpose and the supporting evidence so I wonder if there's a possibility because the word communication was used we communicate the integrity of the council's actions through a document like this but could we think of a set of and it needn't be anything huge but a set of infographics which captures some of this so that it could be easily explained and it wouldn't be necessarily part of this document it would be an appendix but it does I wouldn't say it's hard to read because in our function as councillers we have to digest material like this and tease the real meaning out but for a wider communication that the integrity of the council's activity it might be nice to have some in a sense graphical presentation so that's my first point second is version numbering so we did mention that there is track changes and that's great and if we probe deeper we could find by whom and when that change was made but is there a need for a version system or is this every year and so we just simply refer to the as it were 2022 version with the document and then finally just it's more a point of curiosity so I just have to relate a short story in at JDCC we were reviewing one of the design codes for new development and the design code this particular one was really very nicely structured and so more like a contractual document in which the words should and must are used in their contractual sense so must it has to be should it would have to be but with a justification for not so I was just looking at the seven principles of public life and it does use should and must and I wondered in reading this it just got my antennae going with respect to those two contractual words so that for example it says the holders of public office should act solely in terms of the public interest for example so is that implying should meaning generally yes but sometimes there is a need perhaps to not report something because it's confidential to a person for example so I was just interested and that's more interest than a kind of deep comment but I just value a comment from Mr Tully on that point thank you Mr Tully perhaps perhaps you can address some of the comments that the councillors made thank you chair and thank you councillor Stobart I suppose to go through those in logical order communication of these documents is something which I agree with you and I fully support we need to do whatever we can to make them accessible the original sort of guidance for producing these documents many years ago was very you really should follow this standard for producing them and it wasn't the most perhaps inviting or interesting or engaging way of presenting the documents so we've continually worked to improve those so now I fully support what you were saying I think if we might just get some time to do infographics that would be helpful I think what I've just come back as a point of clarification would you prefer infographics on should we say the first document annual governance statement or was it more the code of governance the second one which you would find more useful or both well if I could choose that's great no the principle documents in the pack as it were the working document for the council fabulous okay so I'm more than happy to look into that I think the second point with the version numbering on the code of governance it's something I could look into doing but really yes it's whenever we bring an update to the committee there's a formal record in the minutes that it's been updated so there is that formal record there typically you know I would bring it most likely every year to the committee when we're in a normal cycle of doing statement of accounts and the annual governance statements the only time I wouldn't bring it if there'd be no changes because we wouldn't want to waste the paper but yeah so there was a sort of version numbering in place and I think the third point was around the should and must and you're referring to comments there in seven principles of public life I suppose my first response to that would be that we've taken that from the actual sort of Nolan committee so that's not our word so we're probably not at liberty to change those but I think it is an interesting point that you raise I understand where you're coming from so probably the brief answer to that is no it's not something we can change but I would be happy to have a discussion with people offline about it if they found it useful Thank you councillor I think it's a curiosity my original comment about the design code there was an essential way of communicating between the local planning authority and the developer but here it's arguably a different kind of relationship it would be intriguing to find out why Mullen report actually chose those words what's the background but I think as councillors we quite understand the importance of openness and we would probably interpret it as a must rather than a should Thank you my suspicion is that it was written in sort of communicative language rather than contractual language so I would interpret the shoulds and musts equivically but they're to guide us definitely councillor Williams I believe you wanted to Thank you and I'm reset to councillor Stobart's comments on design I think it would be interesting to see it in a new format but I would be quite keen for that to happen with the next set of accounts rather than changes to this because what we're voting on today obviously is if he's agreeable because we're so close now with this you feel quite honest but going forward and I've always seen this as very much of a live document which we pause in a moment in time to include in the accounts but it is ever evolving to the circumstances in relation to the principles of public life that is for all of government civil service and everything so I don't think we can really change that and I think as you say it's for us to interpret and act we feel we should but just as an example on the openness it's so important to be open and transparent about everything that we do but there are times to protect the rights of an individual for example or we do there are genuine reasons why we have to go into close sessions sometimes what might be contractual reasons so I think that may be there for those incidents this is ethics not rules and I think if we were prescriptive then it's a rule-based system and that is a bit of a can of worms chair but I think the ethics of which the seven principles of public life same as if you have a professional body we have professional ethics which essentially is what this is should be looked at and strongly supported by us so you have my sentiment councillor to Stobar but I think there is probably justification for allowing leniency in some spaces to protect the rights of individuals thank you chair thank you councillor I think just on the just for myself on the design piece I think as as these formal documents catch up to the present day I think the communication the potential for these is a communication tool for the council will increase I appreciate there may not be a great deal of interest in the statement of our financial balances sort of two years ago but I'm dreaming of the day when it will be a slightly more timely document and at that point it may be an important part of the way that this council communicates with its residents with its suppliers with all of its other stakeholders and I think already in this statement overall statement of accounts has marked improvement in kind of format and style and I'm sure we'll come on to that but I think sorry it would be good to see the annual governance statement and indeed the local code of governance kind of keeping up with that progress as well and looking to find ways to make this a document that can draw people in through a kind of variety of media but we will leave you with those thoughts I had one detailed comment I'd just like to raise which is on page 23 unfortunately one of my pet pet bugbears I'm afraid talking about the zero carbon strategy so having read it a few times it does become clear to me but I think we've got to be very careful that we distinguish between when we're talking about the emissions that the council as an organisation emits and when we're talking about the emissions from the kind of the population of the area that the council kind of represents and I think perhaps maybe just look at some of the language there and just make sure it's absolutely clear who is cutting what by when because obviously it matters to the degree we have the most control over our own emissions and a different role to play in how we affect the emissions of the wider community so that's just a little bugbear of mine just to make that as clear as we can but as you say this is an iterative document to the latest versions with track changes and I think perhaps a version number or some kind of versioning on the front page of it would be appreciated by the committee I do agree that just something so we can we can keep track and refer back as well as even if it's just the data which it was presented perhaps or something like that would be helpful are there any final comments on the annual governance statement or local code of governance in that case I move that we approve the annual governance statement seconded by the vice chair approved, thank you very much that concludes item 5 thank you Mr Tony for presenting today item 6 is the draft set of accounts for 2021 which feels like a year that was quite recent so we must be doing something right could I please ask Mr Medic to present his report thank you so we've got before you the 2021 draft statement of accounts it's got a slightly different feel and look to it my colleague it's an GC tell who is on this call has been instrumental in getting it a much improved way of doing the accounts and getting the information in and I think I think committee members will probably agree and I think it was mentioned earlier but it is it does in my opinion look rather better than perhaps the previous couple have as regards the accounts themselves you'll see on page 51 there's a line to 54 what we call the core statements so those are the comprehensive income and expenditure statements movement and reserve statements balance sheet and the cash flow statement as I say they're referred to as the core statements so I've put in a little bit of commentary about some of the key figures within those statements but for example on page 51 there's a line there about four up from the bottom called surplus stroke deficit on provision of services and you'll see there's a significant surplus showing there now that was due to primarily due to an increase in evaluation of our investment properties but because that is an evaluation increase we cannot charge that against the council tax on the following page that item has to be reversed out so it doesn't have any overall impact on our general fund so whilst it's a the statement on page 51 shows all of our income and expenditure as the name suggests it's not the four position when we start looking at the overall counts of balances on this general fund and housing revenue account the balance sheet on page 53 there's a number of movements there that are reasonably significant we've seen an increase in our value of our property, plant and equipment again much of that is our council dwellings so we've seen an increase in the values there a previously mentioned investment properties we've also seen an increase in sundry debtors and prepayments creditors a lot of that was COVID related we received grants in advance we also we also had income from central government in advance of when we were going to be spending it so the creditors and debtors have changed a lot of that is to do with the pandemic also again the pension reserve for example that's based on a lot of assumptions some of those assumptions changed with time and for example during the pandemic returns from property and the investments were expected to fall because of the situation we had then so that has affected the liability there are a number of notes to the statement of accounts they just give a little bit more detail behind particular items within either the comprehensive income expenditure statements cash flow or the balance sheet we also we also have a housing revenue account because we are stock holding local authority so we have to account for that separately to our general fund and we've also got something called the collection fund which is where we account for the collection of business rates and council tax and the distribution of those to preceptors so that's the accounts as I stand they've been published on our website and they're currently going through the public inspection process which is due to end I think on the 7th of February there was any questions or comments in relation to those accounts thank you Mr Manwick council Williams I believe you indicated you wanted to speak thank you chair I'll start off with a couple of main questions I do have some very very minor typographical or rounding which with your permission chair I'll convey to Mr Maddox outside the meeting I don't think we need to debate an extra space or two but on page 44 and 45 I just wanted to discuss the charts I will say that it is much improved I think in much more accessible format of accounts so that's very welcome if we look at page 44 to begin with we've got the five columns with the fourth column going left to right difference to actual to out turn but we don't call we've got a reported out turn a revised out turn I just think from a public access position it'd be helpful if we called it actual out turn and reported out turn rather than revised so then when people are looking at the difference it's really clear which columns are actually being compared and again with the variance perhaps something that in brackets says we know it's actual from budget but something that explains it for an accessibility point of view equally on page 45 we've gone down to four columns and it would be really lovely maybe it's me just liking things to match I am guilty of that but it'd be nice if we had the fifth column as well with the difference as well as the variance so that we can Chairman I'm very very sorry but I think if the people copy are not matching up that have a look at these ones Mark no no no but it's not only going to be for me but if we're all going to be working it's supposed to be on on which page have you noticed a difference I'm on page 45 am I on the right one yep it's you're on that's a little chair if I refer to both large number okay I'll hope for now but Chairman in the future medium that we use okay thank you right so I'm referring to page 44 large number page 3 little number that has highlighted the fact that we go from page 3 little number to page 1 little number actually I don't think that's going to help us either in this situation so let's refer to the central numbers at the bottom for the whole agenda and I'll share with Mark thank you sorry do continue Council Williams okay thank you chair so we'll put checking of numbers on our list perhaps be advisable I'm really worried about saying what page now so page 51 which is little page 6 that might not be where page 6 is I just wanted to ask in relation to the chief executive and chief operating officer budget it's quite a significant drop if we could have some explanation around that and then later on we do refer to cash and cash equivalents on page 56 little 11 it refers to on 1.3 that the figures are net of bank overdrafts I just think it would be helpful to know what overdrafts what value of overdrafts we have actually available to us cos that may help with things chair just to get an idea of what we do have available really cos it's something that we don't often get reported on I think that's it and like I said minor things which I'll go through with the team afterwards chair thank you counsellor Mr Maddock you're happy to pick up on some of those questions I wonder for the overdrafts in particular whether that's something to include broken out and next time we look at the treasury management side of things and see the size see the cash holdings and see the real and available overdrafts as separate items but perhaps you'd like to come in on some of the other comments that counsellor Williams made yes that's fine yeah I mean the table's gone 44 and 45 there's been consistency there so I'm sure we can pick that up and get that sorted out that's fine obviously the numbers have gone a bit weird for some reason but yeah we'll get that sorted out thank you I appreciate there was some interruption in the middle there have we captured all of your earlier points that you wanted to raise I did ask about the drop in the chief executive chief operating officer budget and the overdrafts but overdrafts might need to be given another time yes thank you do you have an answer to hand for the change in the chief executive and chief operating officer line don't think we do we'll have a look at that and get back to the can't think of the top of my head but it's probably something we can blow hands on pretty quickly thank you I think in fact the chief executive perhaps would like to well I can't answer the question but all I can say is that I arrived during that year so the structure changed quite considerably between the previous structure and the old structure so I imagine it's wrapped up in those changes but I can't be more specific with that I'm afraid council Williams thank you that's a helpful clarification I'm happy to receive an answer by circulation after the meeting did you want to come back in council Williams thank you chair yes that would be very helpful because it is sort of a million pounds it's not a small figure I'd be really appreciative if someone could just look into that because given the size of variants it may be advisable to put a note or something saying for example there's been a change to give some form of explanation thank you yes I think that would be appropriate are there any comments from other members of the committee no councillor Samford thank you chair the increase in pensions libraries is quite eye catching I appreciate that we're waiting circumstances and the liability will not crystallise anytime soon but I'm wondering if someone is actually monitoring this liability to make sure the council's pension liability doesn't get better control 36 paragraph 12 at the bottom of the page yes thank you councillor Samford I had that noted as well I wonder if we can have I don't know if you have this but the latest valuation and in general obviously I think it seems to be a liability that is incredibly volatile and changing a lot from year to year and how do how do the council officers incorporate that into their thinking about the council's financial sustainability I mean it is interesting and that is a fair point the volatility is significant a lot of the valuations sorry the elements within it are based on assumptions going forward quite a lot of years so even quite small adjustments to assumptions can have quite significant impacts on the figures themselves we get with each set of accounts we get a valuation report from the actuaries so each year they go through they look at the assumptions they look at the figures so we have quite detailed report which EY can get a chance to look at and comment on as well we also have a try I can't say this word try annual valuation of our pension fund so that's carrying out every three years have a look at the assets liabilities so we'll be getting the results of that or we'll just have the results of that so we'll just have the results of the latest trade and valuation so there's quite a lot of control over where the pension fund is going I mean it's one of those things that it relates to pensions that have been paid out quite significantly potentially in the future but also some that are more recent so we have a constant review so we have a valuation each year the try annual valuation a bigger valuation is more detailed and more work goes into that than the annual valuation for the accounts so there's a lot of control and a lot of work goes into making sure that the pension fund is valued correctly and also making sure it's viable and I'm not sure I can really add too much on that but I'm happy to get some more information as a result of the valuation if that might help the committee Yes, thank you Mr Maddock that was very clear I wonder perhaps if we've just had the results of the try annual valuation whether that might be a suitable item to bring to the committee meeting in March as it's such a key component of understanding the assets and liabilities of the council, whether a short item in March would be appropriate and would also I think be helpful for committee members to understand the process that goes through to come up with that Miss Watts wants to come in I mean page 103 sets out the key differences Councillor and the biggest changes in terms of changes in financial assumptions and obviously we are in the hands of the actually in terms of those assumptions but it is set out in some detail on that page if it's helpful Thank you very much Councillor Leaming I believe you wanted to come in Thank you chair I have a few questions please I always think when you look at a full set of accounts like this they do tell a story of the year and this was a pandemic year and I was wondering if there were any particular things that you would like to point out as being relevant to the pandemic that would explain some of the movements and things. I know you mentioned the way people the way the short term liabilities and assets were affected the debtors and creditors but I wondered if there was anything else in there Mr Maddock that you might like to explain to us that had come from the pandemic I have another question which is back to page 51 which is the Compensive Income and Expenditure Statement The chief executive and chief operating officer line shows significant variance but also so does the shared waste environment line in transformation and I wondered whether there was any overview of what those variances had been and then my final questions are to do with page 79 which is investment properties I think it's a bit of a quite a complicated note that there's gains and losses talked about in different places and in some places the gains are in brackets and in some places in the text they're not and I was just wondering about the second table in there when you're looking at the right hand column on the 31st of March 2021 the 25 million pounds that's stated there is that again yes it's again so I was thinking perhaps if losses could be brackets in that note 12 then that would make that clear to a reader because I think the note above is looking at movements the second note is a balance sheet note so I don't even know if in the same I think if you weren't an accountant looking at this it could be a bit a bit complicated it would just help if we could see whether these were gains or losses and this is a significant gain and I guess my last question with that is does that seem like a reasonable does that make sense to you? Do you know what this gain is? Does it have its evidence in reality? Thank you Thank you councillor Mr Medic so yeah I mean the gain does make sense given what we've seen locally others in other parts of the country so yeah I mean I'm not surprised at the gain that we've seen in our investment properties and we have seen other evidence as well so I think you'll point on the the two notes I think we perhaps need to look at that and just make sure we've got the whether we've got the brackets in the right I think you're right I think we need to just double check 12 aids to make sure we've got the brackets in the right I mean as regards was it transformation and shared waste wasn't it? it's probably better if we're providing a response in relation to chief executive maybe it makes sense to provide a more detailed response to those two at the same time as we do that all the other ones about the I think the main areas that we've seen are the debtors, creditors and the pensions liability I'm not sure there's anything else that's particularly affected significantly by the pandemic I mean probably values on our council housing did go up and I'm not sure I don't think that that would necessarily be something that would be obviously affected by the pandemic and say investment properties went up and that sort of thing did bulk the trend perhaps a little bit compared to other parts of the country I'm not sure there's anything else particularly it's mainly around creditors and debtors I think and the pensions liability yes thank you Mr Maddock if you could provide by circulation just an explanation of those variances that have been highlighted that would be very much appreciated are there any further comments from members of the committee I want to ask one sort of perhaps slightly philosophical question so through the narrative and then on into the main statements there are lots there are many different measures of the council sort of surplus or deficit depending on which funds you're looking at what kind of basis, what kind of treatment how would you advise kind of perhaps members of the council more widely if there was a measure to look at which perhaps encapsulated the financial sustainability of the council which of the various measures on offer do you think to your mind captures captures that essence of how the council is doing financially I think I'll probably say the health of our balances our reserves and our balances on our housing revenue account and our general fund so those are so on page 52 in the movement of reserves statement right at the bottom there you've got the balances on our general fund our EMR reserves our housing revenue account so in particular those are our usable reserves so there's sort of money we've got available to use either on the revenue or capital if we're talking about capital receipts and capital grants on applied so I think that's probably the best measure to look at the CIS shows us our income expenditure for the year but it doesn't really show us the full picture so I think a better picture is the balances that we actually hold at the year end thank you so to interpret what you've pointed out there for instance on the general fund it shows a decrease of two million out of presumably the initial balance of 13 so in effect we in very simple terms used two out of 30 million pounds in reserves over the course of this particular year on the general fund is that a kind of is that a sort of lucish statement that you'd be comfortable councillors making and understanding? Yeah so the line above your surface relevant reserves so you can see both the general fund and the HRA we've used a bit of our balance that we held at the start of the year above all you can see that we've still got balances in hands available for use at a later date Thank you That's very helpful Any final comments? Thank you Help myself I mean I do think you need to look at if you're going to look at the general fund balance you need to look at the earmark reserves balances as well which increased by almost 15 million so it's very hard just to take one figure from those accounts and say that tells the story you kind of need to look at things in the round Yes I wonder perhaps it's a good point, I wonder perhaps some combination of the general fund and the earmark reserves might be an interesting I mean by earmark this is money that we have ourselves set aside and could presumably on the set aside if we needed to have I understood that correctly that sort of discretionary rather than anything contractual? Yeah so the earmark reserves things were set aside for specifically what I would point out and I did forget this point when I was answering was a a significant amount of that does actually relate to Covid money that we had in hand so some of that would then get strength in the following year so I think there was an overall increase in our earmark I wonder perhaps reflecting on our conversation whether there is a place in the narrative for some sort of reserves that are our own whether we earmark them for some project or not and whether they're going up or down might help I'm thinking obviously we're all happy to look at lots and lots of different numbers and lots of different ways of cutting the same thing but I'm thinking perhaps of some of our colleagues who don't have the joy of this committee on a regular basis and how we might best communicate with them I'll leave those thoughts I'll leave you perhaps with those thoughts and we can come back to that I mean if council's interested on page 74 no 8 we have a bit more of a breakdown of the earmark reserves so there was 6.4 million added to reserves in relation to Covid so just less than half of that increase that's helpful to highlight as we reflect on this is a sort of pandemic set of accounts so I believe we have been asked to note and comment on the report which we have done so thank you members the final item is matters of topical interest are there any matters of topical interest that members wish to raise council Williams a couple of things first talk it talk it talk it training please thank you I feel like this is becoming a sort of a you know ritual of my requests but I appreciate it's lot going on I've looked at both sets of training that's potential I'm happy to do both I'm somebody that thinks that the more the better on that score particularly I was going to be well there's been some change around SIPFA haven't come in already and we did have when I first became a councillor and this was for all members SIPFA came in and did a training day for us and it was incredibly useful and incredibly good and actually Alex Collier arranged for some investment training didn't he which was essentially done in a role-playing game it was very very interactive and very good I understand why we were in the pandemic you know councillors we couldn't come in and do what we were doing then but I don't see why we couldn't have those sort of training days now that could be looked at so not just for us but for SIPFA was very good for a county hold particularly taking into consideration the comments that were made earlier by Councillor Leaming about several of us here are accountants or working finance therefore it's a lot easier for us to pick this up but that's not true of all members and our role is to support them and to help them particularly when budgets come up and the like all members have a role to play not just us so I think that would be helpful the other thing and I appreciate this is just this is probably actually about genders in a whole if we look at our cover sheet today and the top left we've got a dress, we've got a telephone number we've got a fax number I'll be interested to know when the last time we got a fax but I do know for some reasons we need it we've got the website but no email address up there and I appreciate when I look right down to the bottom you can see with Patrick there we're back Patrick's name and lights on the bottom but I'm just wondering if we can have fax in our reports maybe it's time to add our email as well so there was that third and final thing chair is that going forward we know that there's going to be difficulties with finance and everything in the current financial situation and that puts more emphasis on our commercial investments and the like and things like Irmond Street and other things that have been bought one thing that I don't feel we've ever truly found a way to do at this committee is sort of post scrutinise in investment decisions we get the accounts we can see how things are going overall but I think when we have the first financial purchase post purchase it did come to audit we've never had anything since and at the time it was expressed that we assumed that audit at some point would have a view on the investments that have been made and several multimillion pound investments have been made since so I'm wondering chair with officers and portfolio holder if required we could look at a way of us monitoring the performance of those investments as a council we are so reliant on that now to support much of our income and the current climate and on those investments and companies just wondering how often we check and alter our offices at companies house I only say this because I'm aware of former council officers that are still appearing on companies house in relation to some of the companies by arrangement and that may be that they've agreed to continue that role for example but I don't know so we thought best to raise and check we have a process for that okay thank you chair thank you councillor I believe Mr Manning I might turn to you if I can for the toolkit I believe we have a very late Christmas present for council Williams on that thank you so we're hopefully going to go for the 16th of March I'm hoping you're available while you're shaking it it's quite difficult it's yeah I mean you're not available for that I mean we obviously want to hold it in person and I think it's sort of like a workshop type type thing and I think yeah so if councillors could please check diaries for the 16th of March that's a suggested date for reviewing the SIPFA audit toolkit which I think we decided was the more relevant perhaps the work of the committee than some of the other options that we looked at I think so I think that's certainly the one I think we should concentrate on it'll be we're intending to do it in the afternoon of the 16th hopefully if the members are available I'm not sure how long it'll take to sort of the thinking at the moment thank you councillor Williams I'll take away your comments on investments and the kind of the post scrutiny of investments and whether there's a role that this committee can play in addressing those I agree that they're going to be of increased importance so perhaps Mr Medic you and I can have a have a talk about that outside the meeting as to how we best put that into place who's responsible for updating companies house which was an issue that councillor Williams raised in terms of our subsidiaries and and so forth so I'm happy to raise that with the officers because obviously the directors of the ministry should be updating I do know of one past officer that is potentially still involved so I don't know whether it's that officer or somebody else that still is we can certainly check that out thank you, that would be appreciated are there any other matters of topical interest regarding ministry a couple of the non-executive directors have just stepped down because I think there's a six year period expired so whether that's actually been updated to reflect that I'll inquire but it's a good point thank you councillor Samford that would be much appreciated if there is no for the business so the data next meeting is Thursday the 23rd of March at 10am returning to our normal morning slot for that meeting if there is a need for a one item meeting between now and then to sign off on the audit I will circulate details for members and details will also be published in the usual process on the website and in other communication channels thank you very much everyone I declare the meeting closed at half past three thank you very much for coming