 Mae pobl yn y gwirionedd. Mae hi'n gweithio'n gweithio ar gyfer y Gweithgatol. Mae'r gweithio ar gyfer y gweithio ar gyfer y Gweithgatol. Mae'r gweithio ar gyfer yr Gweithgatol. Mi'n gwirionedd, Mikel Atkins. Mi'n gwirionedd. Yn ychydig i'n meddwl yn y cwmwyllt yn gweithio, i'w labrwyddoedd ychydig yn y cyhoeddus fel y cyd-dynnu, y ddyn ni wrth gael Iergyrchu'r ddedig yn y ddweudio, mae'r cyd-dynnu yn dweudio i'r ddweudio yn dda i ddweudio hwnnw, yw'r pwyllt ychydig yn y ddweudio, ac ydw i'n gweithio i ddweudio'r ddweudio ar y ddweudio'r ddweudio'r ddweudio, ac mae'n fydd yn ychydig i ddweudio'r ddweudio'r ddweudio'r ddweudio, Make sure that your device is fully charged and that you switch your microphone off unless you're invited to do so otherwise. Please switch off or silence any other devices you have so that they don't interrupt the proceedings. Please use a headset when speaking and hold the microphone close to your mouth. Finally, when you're invited to address the meeting, please make sure your microphone is switched on. And when you've finished addressing the meeting, please turn it off immediately. gweithio yn dda i, a gweld yn edrywateraeth neu dda wedi gweithio'n ei homoedd. Rwyf wedi bod gweithio cymdeinig yn y Cymru, y Prifysgol Cymru, wedi yr Ysgolffordd Mark Hale, y cyhoedd yma yn cael eu cysteig iawn, yn ei dda i, ac mae'n fawr ein goodfyn ni yn cael ei gweld y Prifysgol Cymru fel y cyf丈r am y gyfosedig cyd-rwyng iawn. Rwyf wedi cynyddu i'r ffordd ac i'r gweithio. I would like to thank my vice-chair, Councillor Sanford, who chaired the previous meeting of this committee while I was on leave. I would also like to thank Councillor Joe's Hales for serving on this committee for the past year, alongside his other responsibilities for the council with which he continues. Item one of the agenda is Apologies for Absence. Are there any Apologies for Absence? I have won apology from Councillor Richard Stobart and I do have Councillor Joe's Hales as a substitute as well. He might turn up a bit later, clearly not allowed to leave for very long. Item two, Declarations of Interest. Do any members have interests to declare in relation to any item of business on the agenda today if it becomes apparent later? Would you please raise it at that point, Councillor Sanford? I have my usual Declaration of Interest as a non-remunerated, non-executive director of South Cams Limited Trading as Urban Street Housing. Thank you. Any further declarations of interest? No. Item three then, minutes of the previous meeting. I have the minutes of the previous meeting here, held on the 29th of September 2022. Are you happy to approve these as a correct record? Any changes? I move the approval of these minutes. So, seconded. Thank you. I will sign those at the end of the meeting. So, item number four, the first substantive item is the Risk Register as at November 2022. We're invited to review the Strategic Risk Register. I believe Anne Ainsworth is going to present this report and then we'll move to a discussion. Hello, good morning. Thank you very much, Chair. So, yes, just a brief introduction. Obviously, in front of you have the Council Strategic Risk Register. Just I wanted to comment on the process for bringing the Risk Register to you today because we have made a few changes to the way that we're looking at recording and reporting risk across the council. The details of that are included within the cover report, but just to provide a little bit more information. As you know, previously we've had a software system that we have used to record risk across the council and we've been reviewing whether that is the best system to use moving forward. The work on what options might be for a software system moving forward is still ongoing, but what we've been doing is we've worked with colleagues to identify risk champions in each service across the council and they've been helping advisers on what the best process might be for recording risk and for bringing risks, strategic risk to yourselves and also to leadership team and to our corporate management team as well, so that we have a high level of visibility of risk and also we can be clear about when risks need to be escalated further. So, for the moment, we've really simplified the process, we've streamlined it and as I say, we're going to be looking then at what systems we could use moving forward. The other thing that we've done is we've moved the corporate responsibility for risk from our finance colleagues across to policy and performance. It's now sitting within the transformation team and it sits alongside our reporting on performance for the council as a whole. We felt that they were quite natural bedfellows and moving forward we're going to be looking at the resource that we require just to make sure that we have that sustainability around risk and it is embedded alongside the performance reporting that we do. I will leave it there, Chair. I have a number of colleagues with me today and obviously we're very happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'd like to open this report up to any comments or questions from councillors. Councillor Heather Williams. Sorry, thank you, Chair. Just in relation to a couple of the risks, sorry, the internet doesn't seem to be working too well so I'll revert to coffees, I think. In relation to council housing, which is on page 20 on the compliance risk, obviously I think all councillors will be aware of the tragedy incident that was in relation to mould and damp. I'm just wondering whether this risk is taking into consideration those risks because I'm conscious that some of this report may have been done quite some time ago and where we're at with that and whether that introduces making us more aware of new risks and therefore the figures should change and I think the correspondence so far that we've had from officers as obviously is something in the forefront of people's minds. I don't think it has assured everybody as much as we'd like so we could have some more assurance as to how we are ensuring that we don't have any incidents here in our council. The other point I had, Chair, was in relation to cyber security breaches. I can see what we're putting it down brings us into amber but something as serious as that given the implications it would have for individuals and our residents. I'm just wondering if there is more that we could do because to go from 15 to 10 I'd like to see that much lower than 10 especially in the current climate where we know that councils are potentially going to be under severe pressure on this so some more information around that please Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any officers present who would like to respond on one or either of those items? Peter Campbell. I can say at the housing issue thank you councillor for raising the issue of damper mould which is very much in our mind at the moment. So you're quite right the compliance risk was targeted much more at the at the risks where there's existing legislation such as gas safe, the need to carry out electric tests asbestos etc. My feelings is that the risk of damper mould falls much more into risk 24 which is around risk it's the performance of mears but the putting actions in place to prevent any district repair claims or properties falling into district repair and I think you're quite right we could just tweak the wording to reflect the concerns that come over this path this past week or two to reflect that that doesn't clearly include damper mould. Thank you. Is there anyone who wants to pick up on the cyber security issue? Yes, Anne-Ain Dwellas. Sorry to have just tried to come off a mute there. In terms of the rating that we've given cyber security this was after Jeff Membrey had had a conversation with the head of IT Sagar about this risk and even though we're putting in place mitigations because the risk is high and it is high nationally at the moment the sense was that we still needed to keep that residual risk quite high in recognition that there are a number of attempts in terms of cyber security and they have been across councils nationally so that's why we've still kept it high but we are obviously looking at a number of mitigations from from our perspective in order to try to keep that risk as low as it can be. Councillor Heather Williams. Thank you chair just just in relation to the housing first the reason I referenced that under number 22 is the risk is risk to life which we can see was very much the case there. I appreciate what you're referring to with number 24 in relation to people keeping an eye on mirrors and that contract and disrepair but what I'm looking for really is us auditing not just reacting to complaints but auditing our housing stock to make sure this isn't the case because I know in many places and many council properties in my ward there are residents now that would not be able to identify that danger and report it to the council and it's those sorts of individuals that I'm people that are you know have a something like the onset of dementia or Alzheimer's but still living independently perhaps in our sheltered housing and just want to know what we're what we're doing to sort of audit our properties because those people wouldn't be able to report a fault or report down to us and we do have a duty of care to make sure that that their living accommodations is not going to put them at risk of life so that's my my question around what we're doing to audit properties. The other thing in relation to cybersecurity can I just have some assurance that if more needs to be done then the resources are you know there is budget and resources available given as has been said the the high threat level essentially councils are at at the moment um if we need more have we got the ability to get more. Thank you Peter Campbell did you want to come back on the yes if I could so yeah thank you for for that so there um what we are doing this year um is that we're we're already committed to carry out a a stock condition survey and we're aiming for that to include 100% of our of our stock which will include you know involve sending a surveyor into each property and they will pick up on on any outstanding issues including damp and mould. Moving forward after that we've already instructed me as our contractor that when they're in a property carrying out repairs whatever they are or other issues such as service in the gas boiler they're proactive in looking for signs of of of damp and every contact that the tenant has with the repair service we're bit we're proactive the asking are there any or the issues in your property that we need to be aware of so we're we're using basically every contact every touch down date we have with it we're tenants to ask the questions to try and identify problems and that can extend to people like the it's I've used me as an example um but it will include um all housing staff including uh non-technical people who will be there in the property to provide support to people. Thank you uh Liz what I believe you wanted to speak on. Thank you for my on the second uh risk that Councillor Williams raised chair on cyber security we are resource to respond to this um having recently attended uh session given by two large councils who had cyber attacks um I think uh you know while you can spend a lot of money on on infrastructure that the key here is about cultural change and understanding by all of our colleagues um that it's really easy to fall for a cyber attack so we regularly um send out kind of test messages to see you know if we if people are responding to them and people still do respond to them unfortunately not in great numbers but that's you know part of the learning um is about kind of demonstrating to colleagues that it's really easy to fall for these attacks and certainly in the case of the two uh councils who presented at the event I was at you know their systems were down for six months and they were completely paralyzed so it's crucial that we kind of embed the cultural change in the organisation um and that's not necessarily financially resource hungry it's about um ensuring that we're continually reminding people continually demonstrating to people what happens if if they do click on the wrong link if they do start to communicate with somebody who appears to be uh one of our suppliers in there's actually somebody is actually a hacker you know kind of um and do different guys but we we are resourced um as far as we can be doing thank you something for all councillors to bear in mind as well I suspect um are there any other comments on the uh risk register uh okay lots of hands uh councillor uh councillor Jeff Harvey first thank you yes um thank you Jeff um so um had a a sort of reasonably time critical um incident over the weekend and I want to thank Liz Watts CEO and uh Bordei and uh Peter for sort of responding so quickly to that um I didn't think I would this wasn't um super time critical although I was really grateful that it was all sorted out that evening because that's that Saturday evening from some sort of being alerted by a parish councillor um late on Saturday afternoon um but just occurred to me there are various things that if that had been really time critical would have made it run smoother I mean the first thing was that um it took me a while to remember that I've noted the um leadership team emergency number on my phone um and I wondered if we could maybe get some of sticky labels um to sort of put on the back of our um entry tax for example because that's a lot of a place where you would sort of naturally associate you might have put that number and then I wanted also um you know whether um that that sort of system needs some kind of um testing you know every year or six months or whatever just to make sure that you know we get the quickest response we can that was just a suggestion thank you um sorry Liz did Liz what did you want to come in on that happy to respond and say thank you and good suggestions and we'll certainly take this forward thanks thank you uh councillor Helen Liming I think you wanted to speak thank you chair um I wanted to ask about point 14 please um in the risk register that's on page 17 um it's about the responses to um the economic pressures risk please and there's a number of things listed in the mitigation column so things like refresh the investment strategy um and a programme of service reviews to continue is actually taken to um to mitigate the risks of the economic backdrop um I wondered when these things were taking place whether we amended the timescales for these um or whether we were maintaining the same pattern of of work that had been planned already or whether some of these things have been brought forward thank you uh beat about it yeah so so obviously a lot of the mitigation is around trying to prepare for something we think is going to happen potentially in 25 26 um so yeah I mean we are seriously thinking about them now because obviously you know it's likely we're going to have a big drop in our funding from 25 26 so the sooner we prepare for that the better so yeah so we're looking at that sort of stuff already the medium term financial strategy is actually coming to cabinet on the 12th um so and that's taking that takes into account the fact that we it does look as if we're going to have this this cutting funding in 25 26 so we are sort of preparing well in advance um obviously there's you know there's only so much we can do because I think you know we can prepare to a certain point but it's going to happen um we just don't know how good bad when different it's going to be but yeah you know we're preparing as best we can for that and we're preparing now for something we think is going to happen in the country thank you thank you are there any further comments from councils at uh at this at this point um thank you uh one one uh just uh one sort of one and a half from me perhaps um under shared services uh governance there was a suggestion that this was going to be uh that there's going to be a review or there's perhaps a review underway um I wonder if perhaps that's something that falls within the remit of this committee uh to keep a close eye on the governance arrangements of our set shared services with other councils and whether there's some uh there's some element of that review either in progress or completed that could be brought before this committee at a future meeting I'm not sure who has own who has ownership of that thank you at this point uh could we take that one away chair um just to sort of consider I I know that shared services are currently feeding into a number of different kind of member arenas and I just want to make sure that we get the kind of governance process around that kind of really tight so if we could take that suggestion away and so just to sort of part of our overall responsibility for kind of corporate governance I think it's important that this committee has a look at it at some point but happy to make it make sense in terms of the the existing working groups that are looking at it um in in terms of the the next steps from this I I'd expect this to come uh that I'd like to see this register come to the committee on a relatively frequent basis um I think perhaps twice a year feels about right to me but if other members of the committee feel strongly we could review it more frequently or less frequently we're happy with thank you so if we could if we could keep this as a kind of a sort of sort of regular standing item I'd say about once every six months it'd be good for this committee just to keep an eye on these risks and and how they're emerging and developing um and if we could include when we see it again any kind of substantive changes from the previous time that would probably help our discussion as well um but thank you uh very much for presenting that we've been asked to review and note the risk register which we have done so item five is the mid-year 22 23 treasury management report um could I please ask Peter Maddock to present this report and I'll then open it to members for discussion so um as part of the uh prudential code um it's incumbent on the council to um review um a year end position a six monthly position and also have a treasury strategy as part of the budget process so this is the middle two of those reports if you like um and it's looking at the first six months of the year um just like to pick up um paragraph 17 um it appears to be a typo in the middle of the top table under investment counterparty short term where it says clearing banks and matured figures should be 15 rather than five as in 15 million um and you'll see uh the breakdown of our uh investments there at paragraph 17 um investments have gone up a little bit over over um the last six months due to additional capital receipts that we've received um there's also under 27 for example you've got the uh the borrowing that we have our short term borrowing hasn't changed and our short term is general from borrowing and equally our long term H.I. borrowing hasn't changed either so there's been no movement there then have a table under paragraph 30 which looks at one or two um budgetary type items like our interest payments uh our investment income and items like that and overall we expect to uh do better on those than we said in the in the original budget um a few ups and downs within the different categories but overall we're expected to be better um we'll probably leave it at that and see what if there's any questions comments in relation to that report thanks thank you Peter and thank you also for recently arranging uh some training for members of the committee on treasury management i understand that was well received by members and will hopefully help inform our discussion today um are there any comments or questions from councillors on the treasury management report councillor Heather Williams thank you chair just paragraph 27 um page 27 was nice symmetry to that um in relation to the short term borrowing uh while i appreciate nothing's matured in in that phrase my understanding is that the short term will be maturing soon unless it has already been refinanced so just where we're at with that um and how much of that will be refinanced and how much will be repaid please thank you chair so um some of it is due for refinancing or we paying in the last quarter of the year um looking at our cash flows i think pretend you know i think we'll need to talk to our advisors which might be the best approach when it comes to the time because potentially if our you know if our cash flows allow it might be better not to refinance it and hold off borrowing until interest rates start to come down again um but i think we'll need to see where we are when we get to january because it's i think it's february i'll check with my colleague i think it's febru that's the first i think that's five million due to mature in febru and five due to mature in march we believe our cash flows are likely to be strong enough that we could afford not to refinance those two amounts but i think we just need to double check and make sure that everything is in you know is in line but we will talk to our treasury advisors and we'll see what interest rates are like and look like they're going to be before making that decision thank you chair could i just ask when was this short term borrowing originally um borrowed and how many times have we refinanced this um because when we when we read short term it implies it's something that we've done within the last 12 months my understanding is this has been refinanced already several times so um when was the money originally borrowed and how many refinancing have we done thank you chair i'm not absolutely certain on the timings um we've had borrowings i think for a couple of years now if i remember rightly and um we would probably have refinanced some of it at least once i can check on the detail of how it's happened between now and and then but i'm not exactly sure of the detail but i'll certainly check on that chair if it's okay i'm happy to take a written answer to that me too thank you any further comments or questions on the treasury management report thank you councillor jeff harley thank you chair um i think um somewhere in the report i read earlier alludes to the expected um or actually happening uh fall in housing um in the housing market and how that might affect um in street i just wondered um what our expectation is for commercial property and our investments there is is that holding up or is it falling the same sort of trend as housing um so you'll see um at the moment our forecast for investment income is a little down on what we've said um that's partly due to um 270 science park coming online a little bit later than we'd anticipated um so um but the properties that we have uh so at urmin street you'll see we have invested a significant amount obviously there's a little bit of quandary if you like at the moment in that um the fixed rate we're getting from urmin street is not that dissimilar from the amount that we can get from other and potentially um we may see uh we can get more from other other areas but it is only a short term issue i think fairly soon i'll say fairly soon next year or so year and a half we'll see that turn back round again so i don't think it you know i don't think we need to um sort of get too worried about a short term issue for a longer term game that's potentially still there um we have interestingly enough we have started to explore the possibility of urmin street borrowing from somebody other than the council if we need to free up some of our cash um we haven't got very far with that but that's something that's in the back of our mind should we need some of the cash that we've got in urmin street that's a possibility to look at um but um yeah i mean i think things are going pretty well with urmin street and um yeah i don't think there's too much to add to that i'm expecting that thank you um for my part just on on that um i mean i understand that we're essentially the sole capital provider to um south cam's limited trading centre street um i wonder therefore in when we're looking at the treasury map when this committee's looking at treasury management in these reports whether in effect we want to look at a slightly more consolidated picture and instead of sort of treating south cam's limited as a sort of light box to kind of open it up a bit and say there's this much invested in um properties in the kind of commutable area there's this much invested in properties not in the commutable area and they're sitting on you know this much in cash or something because i mean effectively it is because it is so wholly owned by us it seems i wonder if that would give us a bit of a better senses to the council's true exposure to sort of risks and rewards yes i would have thought that you know we could provide a bit more information because as you say i mean it doesn't you're right i don't think that gives a full picture in relation to i'm sure we can provide something because obviously we do have quite a spread of properties in different areas so i suppose in that respect there's a bit of spread of risk but it nevertheless it is all in properties so yeah okay i'm sure that we can we can do something on that thank you sorry i butted in there at councillor farbyd did you want to come come in come back on that any further comments at councillor hanan leming thank you chair um i'd like to ask about point 13 um in the report please which is to do with the council's capital strategy um so the council's capital strategy was approved on the 22nd of febru this year and it is being reviewed again as part of um the 23 24 budget process i wanted to ask whether um in the backdrop of all the many things that have happened in the world since febru 22 um whether this was going to change significantly what sort of things were feeding through your thought processes at the moment so you say i mean every year we we review this and obviously we take into account what the economic conditions are like and what our actual financial position itself is like so i suspect there will be one or two significant changes as a result and one of the i mean obviously within the strategy we want to invest in the property or things that are either going to deliver a return for us or potentially invest to save revenue or so i suspect the general thrust in in terms of that wouldn't necessarily change um let's say it's it currently being formulated so i'm not entirely sure what it's going to look like but that'll be coming through the process as you say in the next couple of months okay thank you very much um i've just one or two quick comments um looking at our short term investments and our short term borrowings um in the round i understand that uh for the last several years we've effectively earned a kind of relatively positive spread between those that we've been able to borrow very cheaply but nevertheless achieve returns you know even on our short term investments um how is that picked to changing now and how is that going to affect your strategy in terms of our short term borrowings and investments in the next sort of six or twelve months so we we had a period where interestingly enough um the rates where we were achieving on our borrowings was actually lessened with again on some of our investments that had sort of turned around slightly but there's not a huge difference between between the two um we regularly talked to our treasury advisors um to make sure we have the right strategy in place their view is still that we we do um borrow on a short term basis rather than go for anything long term long term rates are relatively high at the moment compared to what they have been um so i mean i think the strategy as far as i'm concerned but subject to any conversations with the treasury advisors could be that if we need to borrow on the borrow short term thank you any final comments or questions no thank you and thank you for presenting this we've been asked to review and note the report which we have done so item six is the external auditors update report on the audit of the 2019 20 accounts do we have a representative from young joining us who can present this report morning chair um both myself and mark Russell are on the call can i hope you can hear us yeah we're all good thank you okay excellent good so this is just a brief report um to give the committee an update on the progress of the 1920 audit and what we thought would be helpful was just to give you an overarching summary but then also show you in some more granular detail just the progress that has been made and i would like to say it is significant in terms of the marked improvement in the the speed with which we're being able to work through with the finance team areas of the audit so that that's my that's my key message we're not complete yet because we are still awaiting certain elements of the evidence that we need to be able to complete our testing and you'll see the key areas that that applies to are from page six in the report but we are working with the team to get access to those that the points on page seven which are the areas not yet started are typically those that we would do towards the end of the audit in any case to check through the financial statements and then do our closing procedures so a brief a brief update for you but in general a much more positive um process this year it is you know clear that we're coming from you know some significant difficulties both for the finance function and for the audits in prior years so you know we can't we can't make a step change a leap to it's all running absolutely smoothly but but i do want the committee to be assured that the process is running far better this year and we are getting access to and through our work um far more smoothly thank you very much i'm delighted to hear as i'm sure the rest of the committee is to the improvements that are being made i wonder if i might just um invite Peter Maddock if he wants to make any comments first then i'll open it up to councillors after that Peter yeah so um i would concur with that view i think um i think the communication between our team and the audit team has improved quite significantly we have um regular weekly meetings updates of where we are they're always really helpful you know we get some good detail of where we are on specific items if there's any sticking points we get an opportunity to you know to discuss those and try and resolve them as soon as possible and i certainly get the feeling that um any queries that have come back um you know if there is an issue you know it's been discussed quickly resolved quickly so i think yeah i just think overall the relationships improved quite significantly and i think that a lot of that has been around the improved communication between the two teams i think thank you very much um sorry just before i open it up to uh comments um Members will have noted the suggestion of an additional meeting of this committee on the 12th of January next year um in order to hopefully sign off on the audited accounts for 1920 um Janet and Peter Maddock um does that still seem like a plausible and sensible date for this committee to reconvene at this stage i appreciate you can't give a cast iron guarantee but is that still something that's sensible to work towards Peter um i certainly believe so i know Mark we've got a catch up this afternoon haven't we to to discuss progress and um i believe that's a case uh is that the case of your your end do you think if perhaps if i if i respond and then Mark can come back in i think the the issue that we're going to have is Christmas to be honest because if you want papers out in time for 12th of January committee and that needs to be the final version of your financial statements that's that's the the pressure point to be honest i think the the process is working well to get through the audit um evidence that we need but then you'll need to update your financial statements for um any any other findings and and improvements in the disclosure and i know that there are one or two that we need to discuss with you so getting that processed and then reviewed by us and then out to committee that that's probably the squeeze on that timetable peter mark i don't know if you want to i mean i think i'd agree with that i think the devil's always is with audit is is in the detail we we've got various elements of the audit still outstanding as per the reports and and part of that's about the the turnaround from the council in terms of evidencing that and as Janet says we've got a few weeks now until Christmas so to be able to clear that down to then close it off to get that report out is yeah tight i would suggest but not impossible again it depends on the turnaround of the the evidence that we require to complete our work just to clarify the agenda says meeting would be on the 12th of December we're actually talking the 12th of January okay that's an error thank you thank you peter i mean on on the basis of this comment i think i'm i'm minded to tell members to put the 12th of January in their diaries um we'll take that away and discuss after the meeting and i'll confirm by circulation whether or not we want to go ahead with that meeting or if there's an alternative date that would work that would work better let's not try and diary manage in the in in no possession but um in any case there's also possibly some flexibility in terms of the notice needed for papers to be given off so i'd want committee members to have some time to review papers but equally i wouldn't want to cancel a meeting just because we'd only have three days to look at things rather than than seven if that means kind of making progress on this so we'll take that away and see if we can find a sensible date that works for committee members um i'd like to open up now for comments i overdue would any members like to comment on this report councillor heather williams thank you chair just before i start with the report on the meetings um i appreciate your point of hold up but i would rather we had it one week later and have the amount of time because it's not just ourselves that need to digest the papers but also public you know members of the public need that's why we have the time periods that we have so taking on board your comments don't want any delays but if it means a week i'm happy with a week if people tell me it's going to be a month then i'm going to be more um more i'd try and use my words carefully chair but not so happy about the delays um going to the report itself so looking at ey's page two the supplement um i'm very pleased to hear that that officers are providing information and things are working better um but i do note on the paragraph whilst there have been improvements and it goes on to say a number of instances where responses to audit requests do not include all the information requested required um this seems to have been a sort of going trend of we're providing information it's not exactly what ey want is there any chance that ey could be clearer about what they actually are requesting um two officers making sure that it's absolutely you know very clear itemized exactly what it is that ey require because i do feel sat here that that might help with moving things on swifter so um any clarity on that the other thing is on page four um it says about the one point just over over a million pounds that was done incorrectly is given the nature um that that will involve additional testing just on a because we've had issues with the fixed asset register before which was a significant part of the bill when it came through um just wondering if we could have an idea as to how much at what degree of additional testing is going to be required because that could be you know an extra 10 percent or 100 percent that would have a very big difference to the sort of hundred or thousand that was added to the bill last time um and i also note that due to absences in ey uh that's why we haven't met the november deadline and we're now saying the end of december can we have assurances that ey will be able to provide the right amount of resources as they are required to do to meet future deadlines um and that there'll be no reflect on us as to the delay caused by ey thank you chair thank you councillor um i wonder perhaps uh janet dorson o mark russell if you'd like to pick up on any of those points before i move on yes sure i'll come in on point one and two and maybe janet can take point three there so on point one in terms of the clarity of uh questioning to the council we are um or we feel from an audit perspective we are providing that clarity in terms of item itemized lists of what we require to support our testing and therefore the evidence require and this is i guess coming to peter's point about working together having those regular meetings to to make sure there is that heightened clarity through discussion each week as well but as the report suggests there are there are those instances where that information isn't coming through first time unfortunately from the council and that's what causes us that clearly delays in terms of the audit process in regards to the capital accounting and the error we identified there so again we are currently trying to understand how that error arose and then from that we'll be able to put in place a testing strategy to to address that issue to make sure there's no other issues that are within the fixed asset register that's an ongoing piece of work so i think at this point in time it's difficult to quantify how much work extra it'll be to close off that issue then janet if you want to yeah sure so just on the on the point around sickness actually what we were able to do was immediately support that within the month of november so it didn't that that wasn't actually the reason why we're now moving into december that that is to do with the time that it's taking just to work through some of the areas and to get the responses that we need you'll note as i said on page six there are certain areas where we've been able to provide the samples that we need and now we're waiting for that information to come back from the council so that's that's actually what's taking us into december and just i would add to mark's point on the on the first point which is you and we've discussed this a lot with the finance team you know we are asking them to to explain certain transactions that took place in 1920 and and the individuals that were asking those questions of weren't there so clearly it takes them a little extra time to go back and actually find um you know somebody within that service or or wherever to be able to explain what was going on at that point to be able to provide the right level of evidence so you know we there's some appreciation as to just you know the fact that we're delving back into the into the past and that does take um some additional time and that is why we're working together still through this this next month thank you for those responses um gathor hello to make a comment yes thank you chair and i can very much understand why there might need to be delayed response to inquiries because of the length of time there's been but it doesn't say delayed responses on page two it says information requests are required um it doesn't include everything now if this has been the first time chair that we had this in the reports to us then i'd say yes it's sort of teething problems and everything else i i was stressed that i believe that this has been an ongoing issue and therefore it is not enough for you i'd say yet we think we're being clear it's quite obvious that it's that it isn't being and i would respectfully ask that they review that um and take on board the comments of the committee in relation to that because otherwise you know this will just be a standard sentence on every single report that we get they have a duty to reflect their working arrangements as much as we do ours thank you chair thank you councillor um i might perhaps ask uh whether peter medican mark russell can consider that when they meet later today and if there's any further uh any kind of further meetings or kind of ways we can improve communication to minimise that in the future although i appreciate it i'm sure we all do the collaboration between all its and finance teams as you know you never get perfect communication but it seems like there may still be some scope for further improvement there so i will leave that in your capable hands thank you councillor the williams are there any further comments that councillors wish to make on on this report for my part perhaps perhaps someone from a young who just clarified on the the misstatement of also the misclassification reclassification of the the building into land could you just confirm for the committee what the expected impact of that might be on the kind of the the primary financial statements sort of and all the disclosures you know what what's the impact of this you know sort of give us a sense of how serious uh or not and the statement this is thank you so i could pick up on that one again thank you chair so the impact as we understand it at the moment should just be on the council's reserves so these are the unusable reserves as reported in the statement of accounts so there should be no um impact because they net each other off within the balance sheet or the um the comprehensive income and expenditure statement thank you that's helpful to understand any final comments before i move on from this item no um thank you very much to janet orson and mart russell for joining us and presenting that report and i'm sure i'd like to i can speak for the whole committee when i thank everyone both from the young and the finance team for their continued hard work in this area we're delighted to hear reports of improved and effective collaboration and we look forward to seeing the signed and audited accounts at a meeting at to be determined thank you we've been asked to note the report and we have done so item number seven is an update uh on the 1920 and 2021 accounts could i please ask peter malick to present this report to the committee thank you chair um so on audit things for 2018 19 those are still being worked on by the public sector audit appointment so i spoke to their representative a couple of days ago and he confirmed that they hadn't quite finished their work but he was intending to complete that work by christmas so hopefully we'll have something in the next week or so um just to follow on from um the report from the y yeah i mean the final accounts audit for 1920 as i said earlier i think has seen an improvement i i do think it would have been foolish to have assumed that it would be a straightforward audit given the issues we've had in the past um i'm not sure i've ever been involved in an audit where there hasn't been a little bit further clarification required in relation to um samples or queries so you know i think there will always be a you know a query raised something might come back and then there might be further queries i don't think we'll ever get away from that um just potentially we might need to tighten up a little bit on those initial responses and obviously um when we um complete the 1920 process i think a good debrief perhaps with with e y and see if there's any still any particular issues that we're having and i see if there's a common theme that we can perhaps uh perhaps sort out but um i think you know you'll never get a position where everything runs completely smoothly and there's not some queries i think we you know we need to to realise that uh but yeah i mean overall i do feel the process has been a lot quicker it's been good communication i think the same meeting's been really helpful and i think it's quite important to have a further session perhaps at the end to see any further lessons that we can learn um the other comment i would make is around the competing demands the team have so it has i think to be fair it has been quite a tough period because not only have we been dealing with the 1920 accounts we've been dealing with the budget and we've been dealing with the 2021 accounts there's been quite an intensive period so um you know trying to manage those competing demands i don't think it's been the easiest process um the 2021 accounts are being done by uh different people than um the budgets of that effect of most two processes have been running in tandem without people necessarily getting fully involved uh in both processes but certainly the 1920 accounts and the budget that have been competing demands there because you're asking for information from the people that are preparing the budgets um but nevertheless i think you know i think the team have handled that pretty well given given the the demands and and pressures um but we just need to to keep keep that under with you just to make sure that things keep keep progressing as as they have been uh 2021 accounts preparation i think has gone quite well it's been a speeded up process um we've now got another interim account and the previous one of the previous interim account has let go got a new interim accountant who is extremely experienced and very good technical accounting knowledge nothing that's added further um what's the word it's added further to the process and i think he's been able to bring a good accounts preparation process into the frame that we've not had before and i think e y referred to that in the report and i think that potentially um will speed up the process not just for 2021 but for future years as well so um i think that's been really quite positive um so that's probably all to say on that at the stage thank you very much uh peter medic um i'd like to open this report up to comments and questions from members of the committee councillor Williams thank you chair just um just in case something's happened since reports been written any news on the audit fees um would be would be uh welcomed as long as it's in the right direction of course um and just in relation to sort of deadlines and and things like that because obviously we do want to get to a position where we have caught up um give them the conversation that e y have just given us how how confident do we feel that we could get to a point that i think it's by 2024 as the councillor isn't it we're hoping to be caught up um just how do we feel about that target thank you so as i say on the audit fees we should have a response in the next two weeks he was very confident he could conclude that by christmas so hopefully the additional meeting in january i'll be able to positively i think um i think i feel with the new process in particular accounts i do feel more confident than perhaps i did before that process was introduced because i do think um i do think it's brought quite a significant uh increase in speed and potentially accuracy as well because the process we've now got actually takes the information straight from the accounts into the statement whereas there was an intermediate process in the past so um i feel reasonably confident i mean i can't say for definite i think it's too early to say because we still don't quite know when the 1920 audit is going to be complete we then also have to factor in the 2021 audit and that's obviously dependent on them when we can get everything sorted out to get the accounts the draft accounts approved now for audit so i'm probably a little bit more confident than i was um but i think it's and i think the target we've set for ourselves is achievable and i think the new process we have with the accounts preparation if anything will make that even more likely uh thank you for that response and i think all committee is is willing officers on to meet that target you know we all want these accounts caught up um because uh it's it's just in everybody's interests um there was one thing that was said there about we've got some more interims and this is nothing you know interims are very useful very nice people got no issues with the principle of it but in finance as we've heard sort of in response at perhaps i i just think a bit of stability and people here for a long period of time is very very helpful particularly when we're dealing with accounts that go back a few years so um is there any opportunity to try and have less interims and more stability in officers other than i would say it's very nice that you're here as well because obviously you've been here for quite some time now um whereas you know we i think but i think since i became a council you're our fourth section 151 officer so you know we we just i feel need some more stability and i i do panic when i hear more interims chair thank you thank you and perhaps you could just clarify the work that the current interims are doing and and and how you see that kind of evolving in the team in the future yeah so um we've got the two interims at the moment um uh james who's the guy that's with us for a little while now is primarily um servicing the audit for the 1920 accounts and the new chap we've got called sumjew he is um concentrating on the 2021 accounts preparation now um i i've signed them up for a bit longer you know i'm not expecting them to go sooner they both seem quite happy and quite keen so i think you know my preference will be to keep them as long as we need to keep them to get up to date but then obviously as part of that process and both james and sumjew know this part of the process is to pass their knowledge on to the team and that's that's quite critical um that process has sort of begun um i think it's going to take a bit of time i think um the um the process we have for preparing the accounts now does look really good so it's quite clear that we need the knowledge that um the interim chap has to be passed on to our colleagues so we can use that model because i think i think that is um potentially a game changer for our accounts process um so yeah so you know i've got them here for for the foreseeable future but obviously anybody who's an interim but anybody in fact could decide they want to move on at any stage i guess but um yeah but the long-term aim is obviously to pass all of that knowledge on to the team so we've got thank you councillor if you want to tell thank you chair and like to say it's just it's nothing nothing personal it's just by the nature and we have um been caught out i think is what i'd say in the past so people can you know give two weeks notice or so just my my question is more around sort of the safeguarding for for anybody um because what we had before was a set of accounts was prepared the interim left and there was no working papers to support figures yeah those sorts of situations can arise so what are the safeguards that we have in place to make sure that if for whatever reason and it can be family commitments different opportunities that involves people to move on it's a safeguarding um for the council that i suppose i'm most keen to hear about thank you chair so so i mean i guess overall there's probably five of us now that i think what's happened in the past is the knowledge has been with one person and that obviously when you get to that stage and it's just with one person they lead you really so um i think it's you know we've got Fasana as well so she's been quite heavily involved so there's there's effectively five of us two of which are interim who have either a detailed knowledge or a pretty good overview of what's happening so i think we do have a bit more resilience built in there than we have in the past but obviously at some points that the two interims will leave us and my intention is that that won't be until we've caught up because i think it's you know it's important that we do that and i think if we remove capacity now i think we're putting jeopardy any chance of catching up thank you um i'm sure we will return to this subject as a moment we sort of reach that kind of catching up point will be a kind of a good time perhaps to just review and check that that kind of knowledge and skill transfer is happening and you have the kind of support resources that you need to to carry that out um whether it's further comments from the committee on this report thank you well do pass on our thanks to the team for working in in a sort of pressurized environment perhaps with multiple competing at important deadlines we do appreciate that that's not the the best possible situation to be in but we're very we're very grateful for their hard work in bringing this council to where it needs to be so thank you very much and thank you to Peter Mack for presenting that report um we move on now to agenda item eight which is the governance risk and control update um i believe Jonathan Tully is joining us remotely could i please ask him to present this report thank you good morning thank you and good morning to everyone in the committee um we're heading to page 44 of your agenda pack for our regular update to the committee on topical governance risk and control matters some of the key points that i'd like to talk you through today um on page 46 of the report we have our internal audit updates uh three reviews were completed in the last quarter um they were all grant certification work two were what we call post payment assurance for all the business grants work which we've been delivering over the past couple of years this involved providing assurance back to central government um around controls to make sure that we undertook all necessary checks to minimise the risk of fraud and error both are full assurance um hopefully as you would seen from previous reports we've been doing quite a few of these i'm hoping this should conclude the testing um what's happening now in central government that they will be reviewing all the returns which have been sent back by all the councils um it's possible they may come back with some further queries but i'm hoping that is concluded the other one is disabled facility grants which is an annual grant assurance that we do um i would like to talk about that because we've given it full assurance and um recognise that it's been an improvement from the previous year um this is in the context that i think it has been difficult to work and allocate grants over the previous financial year coming out of covid um but also they've been working with a new system so that's a big positive achievement that they've improved on the previous year on page 48 we have our forward plan of work and just to highlight but we've introduced two new reviews into our forward plan for the next six months um housing allocation and also another grant certification from for the energy rebate scheme um suddenly base have indicated that they were expecting some assurance work to be completed however at this stage we don't know the full context about they will write as i expect possibly in the new year but we wanted to get that recognised on our forward plan i also want to take the opportunity to just feedback from the previous meeting and our previous reports which prompted some some questions and comments around the carbon management data quality review that we did so just to feedback on some key points there um for the ict the carbon impact um we went away and inquired about that um the server costs um we're not discreetly measured that means we don't have any comparative data between what used to be historically lots of servers on sites to the current position where there's just one medium server and a lot of servers are off sites embedded carbon was another question and comment so embedded carbon this is the carbon footprints which is associated with materials during construction process um so it's the total sort of footprint encode before a project becomes operational um so i think the question there was around what impact that has on us um so what happens is that in projects the embedded carbon is accounted for by the contractors themselves um or if their suppliers are their subcontracting that workouts so it's not our data and the reason for that is we wouldn't want to be double accounting for it and the third point around the carbon was the measuring standards and this is just a point of clarification um so last time i i i'll ask the question about where the standards come from and um i mentioned that it was the local government association that is true but from a strategic point of view there's actually an organisation called local partnerships um which is a partnership between local government association the HM treasury and welsh government so they're providing the advice on strategy and central government themselves provide conversion factors so these are the numbers which are used to help calculate on page 49 of the reports other consultancy activities um just two things to highlight there just because it's been a significant piece of work um the national fraud initiative we've been doing the data extract from all our systems um which we're providing the data back to central governments and this is to enable sort of data matching across the uk to identify potential cases of fraud and error it's a big two-year exercise i'm pleased to say that we've uploaded data to the timescales um so what we're doing now is just reviewing that and providing feedback to the data owners just on the quality of their data and if there's any opportunities to improve it and their systems going forwards but it's good that we've met that deadline and the other one we've submitted business grants data to uh hmrc this is for uh tax purposes um and again we've met the deadline for submission there that was quite a challenging exercise because it's not something we've had to do before it's a one-off activity um but we've managed to do that so that's a positive achievement moving on to page 50 of the report we have our fraud team statistics the one thing i was going to highlight from there is just following on the recommendation from the previous committee meeting we've taken the opportunity to change the style of the charts i think the correct feedback last time was that they were getting quite tricky and complicated to read so i'm hoping this is more simplified and easier to read version but i'm obviously happy to take your feedback on that and i think those were just the key points i wanted to talk through from the report happy to take any questions or comments thank you Jonathan are there any comments from members of the committee councillor mark howl thank you very much indeed um with regards to page 48 one of the um one of the corporate planned objectives and i see you already undertaken it is housing allocations could you please even if it's just a line but could you please look at any member influence on housing allocations members are often and as jokingly said that they can get a council house let's try and squash that if possible and see if there's no member influence i think the law actually states members should not have any influence of any housing allocations in their own ward but if you could just have a look at that please within that be really appreciated thank you very much indeed next sure that's fine thank you councillor any further comments on this update for my part can i understand on page 47 of your report you drew the disabled facility grants to our to our attention in the section on um where you talk about it being a challenging period you you mentioned that fewer people perhaps were coming forward for assessment in the period under review that might otherwise have been expected i appreciate this is slightly adjacent to perhaps your core work but it seems to be unlikely that the fundamental need has reduced do you have any insight as to why fewer people perhaps are coming forward and if there's anything that council should be doing to make it easier for people to access the support when they're properly entitled to it thank you yes i mean those comments are general comments i would make across the nation and we look back historically at that time period people were less likely to be engaging because of periods of coming out of lockdown and things like that um so i think looking at statistics there and i've quoted that there's amounts of money being carried forwards that is quite usual um for these grants certainly central government allows for that i would actually say put it in this context that's quite a low figure for this council in comparison to some others perhaps um so we make the point there that the team is going to employ project officer to help promote it and i think that's certainly going to help um but i think actually looking at those statistics it's done quite well thank you for that clarification the other line that caught my eye was um on page um 53 uh you mentioned that you received a whistleblowing referral in this period i assume related to the kind of counter fraud um obviously limited and obviously what you've been able to tell us about that but but can you give us the context um behind that and um what action has been taken as a result yes absolutely so um i'm unfortunately absolutely right um i i'm not in a really position to sort of disclose any information about that at this stage um it don't want to prejudice my inquiries at all on that um so that's probably about all i can say on it at this page i'll do apologise about that but what i can say is that it's highlighted a potential risk which the chances are it's not going to crystallise but it makes absolute sense for us to dive into that as soon as possible and just try and make sure that everything's okay thank you if you can provide an update to this committee obviously when you're in a position to do so um i would very much appreciate that councillor jeff harvey yes thank you chair um page 48 um i was looking at the item of portals and making resources countant um raised this before and i'm still hoping to have a meeting um with an officer around this um but but basically i think there's a sort of um but perhaps you would sort of um either agree or disagree but i think from my point of view there's a blind spot around um email contact between our customers and our officers because um i believe there's no real way of sort of tracking this at the moment and yet i you know reasonably frequently hear a story is where we haven't replied to emails um in a sort of timely manner if you like or or sometimes even um acknowledge that an email has been received and i i think if if there's if there's no way that we can actually track that we need to sort of somehow um stop people trying to communicate by email um so we don't get that situation situation or somehow change the system so that we can monitor it and and improve it thank you yes no um your explanation makes very good sense um i would agree with that it's a good thing to look into so i'll make sure that's included in our scope for that review thank you any any final comments thank you so uh thank you for john and today for presenting this report and for the ongoing hard work of your team um we've been asked to uh note the report which we have done so uh item nine the regulation of investigatory powers act 2000 update on the use of river powers i think we're joined by uh rory mcanna who will present this short report uh thank you chair chair it is indeed a very very short report um because i can confirm that there have been no um use of river powers since the committee last met chair that's my update uh happy to take questions thank you thank you rory mcanna any burning questions now thank you very much we've been asked to note that we've not used the valid powers since the committee last met which we have done so um item number 10 is uh matters of topical interest this is an opportunity for officers uh members and auditors to raise any matters of topical interest which have not been covered in the rest of the agenda um word anybody like to raise any additional matters at this stage so councillor heather williams i think it's become traditional now chair so thank you for the treasury management training that was um we literally ran from gcp straight into it so we did all manage to attend in the end um but the toolkit that i was promised pre the election would be seen by this committee and have asked at nearly every meeting now so my traditional request chair but although i i just slightly know how i'm saying it you know i do think it's really important we we sit here and we ask you know officers to improve their working ways we we request e y review theirs i think it's important that we do the toolkit or equivalent if they're out there and that we actually make efforts as a committee ourselves as well to demonstrate that we're doing our bit to you know check in and make sure that we're up to date and and giving ourselves sort of a a little bit of our own audits list um so a request again chair please don't make me ask again thank you councillor williams um do you have not made at this point or shall we take this away uh what i was going to say um so we said have you had a look at the wide toolkit at all okay should we have it yeah so yeah okay that's fine i just wanted to hopefully we'll have a have a chat about um when we when we do that because yeah because we obviously we could use that um but the other one was the sip for toolkit as well whether it was worth looking at that one um thank you we'll have an update for you thank you um does anyone else have any master topic of interest they want to raise there's one point that i want to draw to the committee's attention um which is i believe that uh there is new sip for guidance uh sort of in the works and or uh now in the public domain that will strongly recommend that audit committees have an independent member sitting on them at a minimum um so this is something that we will need to consider as a committee um and i'd like you all to start thinking about how we best approach that what sort of skills we might want an independent member to have and and the best approach for recruiting them yes councillor Williams uh thank you so that not all members may be aware as we did look at this a couple of years ago about bringing an independent member so we may want to look at that as a sort of starting point rather than re redoing what's already reinventing the wheel um so it might be that we want to make changes to the reports that came to us before but it might be a good place for us to start thank you that's a good suggestion perhaps we can bring that not to any kind of extra meetings but to our next kind of substantive meeting in kind of march we could start considering that thank you um date of next meeting so um perhaps perhaps somebody from democratic services can remind me so when is the next the next regular meeting of this committee would be scheduled for something in march February time 29 March 29 March um but the agenda obviously says there'll be a meeting on the 12th of December that's obviously that that's incorrect um that was meant to say the 12th of January about understanding some committee members and potentially have difficulty with that additional date um so what i'll say at this stage is that um i think it likely there will be an additional meeting in January um and we will obviously um we will advertise that to members via their emails and we will advertise that on the website and that will be a meeting primarily to focus on the 1920 audit hopefully sign that off and also review the 2021 draft accounts so that the audit of those can then commence and that will be the purpose of that additional meeting but we will confirm the date to you by circulation if that is acceptable any any issues with that chairman all i ask is on you don't clash with any county meetings or for example gcp or anything like that yeah we will um we will find i know it's uh any else is fair enough that fair game but yes but not our overlapping responsibilities in other forms appreciated thank you very much um thank you all for your attendance and your contributions today that was a productive and helpful meeting i look forward what can i say it's opportunity since it is december to wish you all if i don't see you for then a very christmas and happy new year and i look forward to seeing you in january for lots of exciting accounts to go through thank you very much