 am gweithio cyngroadiaeth y gwirionedd, a wnaeth y ffeiniau ar y wybodaeth ar gyfer ffaintl. Byddwn ni'n cwrwach i dd 그ch chi ar bod yn byd y mediadau? Yr amgarffig e-mail e-mail yng nghymru i dda i gan Daniel Foulton, a gwybodaeth gwirionedd yw eu occupation e-mail ar gael oherwydd peidio ddim e-mailau, a dyna arnynt oherwydd e-mailau i reisgoi'r peidio ar y cwrw scent. I will be happy due to the lateness to defer a question to the next meeting. He has subsequently come to this meeting and given a written copy but for the minutes of this meeting I am happy for Daniel Fulton to ask a question in writing received by the council seven days before the meeting and it will be the chair that asks the question to officers not a member of the public. That would be my recommendation to this order committee, but if you have alternatives. Chairman, with your permission, I think of the, the only thing I would add on that, under the chairman's prerogative, if you think it's relevant but it's under the chairman's prerogative whether the question is accepted, not every question. It's relevant and appropriate. Is the committee happy to accept that as a way forward? Okay, if we can make that a minute noted please. Thank you very much. Agenda item four, internal audit plan and opinion. Members, we now come to item four. May I ask Jonathan Tolley to introduce this item? Thank you chairman and good morning to the committee. I bring towards the committee's day reports and the purpose is to communicate a few things. Firstly, the next six months of work. Secondly, feedback from work we've undertaken over the last six months and that allows me to form an opinion on the control environments. It's a long report, but I would just like to pick out some key points for the committee. On page five, there's the recommendations and what we're looking to do is for the committee to endorse and approve the audit plan. We welcome any comment if you want any extra pieces of work to be reviewed and also the supporting charter and code of ethics. I would say there's been no change to the charter and code of ethics from last year when we brought this to the committee. But we do like to include these at least annually to demonstrate how we comply with the public sector internal audit standards. So on page five of the report, it's just a couple of things I'd like to talk about in terms of the background. We're moving to a shorter six month plan. And we've been doing that over the last year really since the COVID-19 pandemic started. And this is important because it's important that we can be agile and respond to demands for new pieces of work. It's a very fast changing audit environments. And this approach was subsequently endorsed approved by our professional bodies as good practice. So we last reported to the committee in November and this report provides an update on work that we've done since that period. I think an important point to focus on is that we've spent a reasonable amount of resources supporting the business grants process, which has been very, very important. It was very high priority work for the council. However, that said, it's really positive that we've still managed to deliver a number of audits throughout the time period. Realistically, when we spend time on the business grants work, some audits will be postponed into the current plan. So in terms of appendices, there are four documents. The plan itself, appendix A, appendix B is the progress update. C is the charter and D is the code of ethics. Just looking at the audit plan, if I may, on page 10, which is section three of the reports, this is how we talk, we sort of communicate how we identify work to include in the plan. And so it's made up of a number of things, risk-based work, risk prioritisation, and there's also some statutory work that we have to do as well. In terms of resources, there's always more demand to complete audits than resources that we have. We can never realistically order everything in a single year. So this just communicates that we prioritise our work according to risk and need. On page 12, we talk about assurance types, and I think that is important since section five. So this is where we illustrate that we sort of analyse our work by something that's a corporate plan objective, which is the risk-based analysis. Core assurance, something that we have to do so that could be a statutory return, grant certification to central governments, and also third party. And that's where we recognise other people that have done audit and assurance work. We then talk about on the following page about different themes, and I've highlighted the four main themes, which I think are important to focus on over the next six months. And in section six, I always like to mention this. It's very important follow-ups when we agree management actions with the people that we audit. It's so important that we actually follow up to make sure that they've been implemented correctly. So we make sure we have time in the plan to deliver that. On page 15, section nine, we sort of illustrate the sort of blend of work over the sort of next 12 months. So this is where we show how the percentages is going to be split between corporate plan objectives, our core assurance work, governance, risk and control activities, and other resource provisions. And, importantly speaking, it's the same as the previous year, but the one thing that has increased is the amount of time in other resource provisions. And this reflects some of the business grants work that we've been doing because we didn't anticipate that we'd be doing as much this time last year. So I would say moving on throughout the reports on page 16, this is where we start to talk about some of the work we're going to do over the next six months, the corporate plan objectives. So that's on page 16. And on page 18, the core assurance work. So these are the things that we have to do. So they're very much firmly diarised in our program of work. And then we talk about on pages 2021, the other sort of activities that we do, so other resource provisions. They're not things which are strictly audits, but they are things which definitely contribute to helping to improve the governance risk and control environment. I was next going to just quickly feature a couple of points from Appendix B, which is our progress update and opinion. So, again, as I mentioned at the beginning, we previously reported the committee in November, so this reflects work done since that period. One thing that's very good is this in terms of resources, which is something we've spoken about at the committee before. We've had positive recruitment, so we've managed to onboard three members into the vacant positions within the team. So that's very positive. On page 23 is where we feature our sort of assurance opinion, and we recognise that they are changing times due to COVID. Overall, the assurance level is the same as in previous years, but we are keeping height and awareness due to changing risks and controls due to COVID. So that was recognised, I suppose, in our themes in terms of the forward-looking audit plan, too, when we're recognising sort of resilience and recovery. On page 25, this is where we start to have commentary about progress against the plans. This is section six, and this is some of the work we've done over the last six months. There are two limited assurance reports, both relating to planning, which have previously been presented quite publicly to other committees of the council. They both had limited assurance reviews, but we're going to follow those up as part of our media plan of work. You would have seen that earlier on in the report to make sure that the actions are being implemented. And then there are four other reviews as well, which we feature in there. One thing which is positive denotes is building control. That was a follow-up review. It was previously limited assurance, and controls have been implemented and actions have been delivered. So we can now give that an improved racing to reasonable. On page 30 of the reports, we provide a counter fraud and corruption update. So this is in respect of the work that internal audit do. And I'm pleased to see we've got a more detailed report on counter fraud and corruption later on on the committee agenda. But just a couple of points to highlight from our perspective, we've been completing work on the National Fraud Initiative. And over the last six months, we had to upload various data sets to the Cabinet Office. And I'm pleased to say that we managed to do that to a decent quality in terms of data quality and within time limits, which was important because they're introducing financial penalties this year. So we wanted to make sure that we did that well. And overall, apart from the penalties, it's very important because when councils submit data promptly, it enables matching to be completed promptly. So it helps us to recover any error and forward quicker. So the data has just been returned. And what we're going to be doing as part of our forward plan is reviewing any potential cases. And I've just put some statistics in there about how much we've received as well. And on page 30, the other thing I have already sort of mentioned in the business grants, I just provide some commentary on what we've done there because it has been a lot of work. I mean, certainly we've added a lot of value to what the teams are doing, working with the revenues, benefits teams to help process these and look at appropriate controls and whether they're in place. It's certainly an environment where there's lots of potential for fraud. And we've certainly witnessed some. But I think, I'm pleased to say, when you look in the context of the sheer volume of grants we've been paying, we've got good adequate controls in place. And then finally, just on page 32, we just talk about the public sector in terms of all the standards and how important it is that we sort of maintain compliance with that. And how the whole sort of output of our work feeds into the annual government statements. And then I say after that we've got appendix CND, but there's no changes from previous years. So I hope the committee finds that useful. I'm happy to take any comments and questions. Jonathan, I mean, we'll come on through it later with the external audit and the review of the accounts. Given the extensive delays because of the fixed asset register, I don't see that the fixed asset register is on your timetable of activities. Would there be anything that you could consider to support internally? Thank you, yes. I think that's a great question, especially in light of the external audit commentary. It's something that's on our forward plans to deliver probably within about 12 months time. But in light of where we are, I would be happy to bring that forward as a piece of work. I think initially my perspective would have been to try and look at a review to make sure once processes have been implemented, make sure they're operating effectively. But certainly something we could consider is how that process is being delivered. So what I probably suggest is that I have a chat with Peter to think about what's the best way to deliver that assurance back to the committee. Councillor Williams. Thank you, Chairman. Through yourself, it's just in particular with the planning audit. I recall from the scrutiny meeting that there was going to be a follow up report that should have been relatively quickly. I'm just wondering what the time scales are on that because obviously it's an area where it potentially understandably the council is under a lot of scrutiny. So it would be very good to see the comparative for those quarters. So when can we expect to get that? Thank you, Chairman. And will it be coming to us or going back to scrutiny? Thank you. So we're keen to deliver those audits as quickly as we can. We can only sort of start to retrospectively review the data once all the data has been finalised and published. And of course it's only just been the end of the quarter two data, which was end of June. So we're working on that as quickly as we can. It's certainly a priority piece of work from the plan. It's one of the next pieces we're doing. And I'm anticipating we'll be taking it back to scrutiny. Thank you, Chairman. I'd like to ask the head of internal shared audit a couple of questions. On page four there's clearly a resourcing shortfall and therefore you have to base on risk and other things as I want to do. Can you quantify in some way what the shortfall is, how many things that we'd like to get audited, don't get audited? On page 27, where we have the various examples of things that were audited, we have assurance level reasonable, which I think is the second best here if I understand it rightly, but at reasonable it says there can still be occasional instances of failure to comply. So I assume this might to fall, but the reasonable audits have no actions. So how do we improve on those ones and get to fall? Thank you. So looking at the first question in terms of resources, councils obviously have a lot of a huge variety of activities. And what I would suggest we normally have, we have an audit universe which tries to map out all the pieces of work that we can do. I would say I would try and suggest that it's probably something that's realistic to cover between a three and five year period. Now I say a three and five year period because by time you get to that three year strategic cycle. Things are very, very likely to have changed. And there'll be some things that should like to review, but they're so low risk. They're just not a priority. So something that I've often thought about as an example of that when trying to communicate it be something to do, say like a garage rinse. It's just not that huge priority, but it's something we'll get around to doing. And what will happen is that some of those reviews will be audited frequently within that five year cycle. So some things will do annually because they're so important to say insurance is over payroll because it's such a high level of sort of expenditure. Certain key financial controls such as treasury management, things like that will be audited more frequently within that five year period. So it's continually developing a sort of cycle of work. So I'm happy that we've got enough resources in their team at the moment to provide adequate assurance to the council over that cycle. So hopefully that provides some assurance to the committee there. In terms of the question about the different assurance levels, it's a really good question. It is very difficult to get to full assurance. It is a challenge and I think auditors sometimes are probably accused of trying to be too risk averse and not actually provide full assurance. So I would say in the context of the reviews that we're reporting on here, building control, they've definitely implemented the actions. That's really positive, but what we'd like to see is see them effectively in operation perhaps for a longer period of time. And then when we can see that operating for a long period of time, we've got that sort of historic evidence to refer back to. That might be an example where we can actually increase it to full assurance. Some order of use it is easy to give full assurance. So things would be grant certification because we will sample test and it will be quite sort of binary or either be correct or it won't be correct. But in some other reviews where it's more risk based, that's the ones where it's really struggling to provide that full assurance because it's just not possible to test everything. And you wouldn't want to test everything because as I say, you want to allocate your resources as effectively as possible and you probably want to be focusing on other things. So hopefully that's a helpful explanation for you. Thank you for that explanation. I would really like to see at least one action in any audit which says reasonable. Surely there should be at least one action leading out of it which would help it towards full. Well, I think there's always sort of room for improvements. In some audits as well, I think another thing to consider, especially with their follow-ups, there may be no new actions arising, which is why there might be zero actions there. But there may be other actions which they are planning to deliver over a longer term. So it might not be that there's no actions in progress, there might still be improvements. Councillor Harvey. Thank you very much indeed. A question for Mr Tully, if you don't mind. On page 30, you said the National Fraud Initiative. Can I just ask, please, with regards to that, have we taken into account what are the councils of a similar size of us where they've had issues? Are we looking at that particular area? And when does, what do we use as a line to say, like you said about the garage rents there, as something which, you know, it's just not worth us investigating too seriously and over what time limit? And where do we draw that line, even though we might have a moral responsibility to do that? Thank you. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you. So the first question in terms of the NFI, I haven't actually done a lot of benchmarking between other councils, but as a shared service, I do look after more than one council and I've got experience of working at three other councils in the past. So I'm quite happy and confident that the South Cams data is quite reasonable. There's nothing of huge concern to me there. And I know at South Cams we do actually actively sort of look into these results as well. There are some optional data matching exercises and we participate in those. So it is something that we do take quite seriously. With regards to trying to, the second question, trying to draw a sort of line as it were, there's no simple answer to that, but what I can do is talk around the processes of what we do. So every time we identify a piece of work to complete, there'll be a number of determinants, a number of risk factors that we score against. And that helps us to get an overall score for the system. So it could be considering various different things, financial significance, how much expenditure is, what the budget is. It could also be non-quantifiable factors, things like reputational risk, and we can base it on the effectiveness of the risk registers. So all these different things which we score, and that helps us to come up with a total score for each review. Then from that total score we can actually prioritise what we want to focus on. So it's not that with some of these low scoring audits we would never review them. It's just that it would probably take a bit of a while till they come round and feature on the plan. Certainly one of the other determinants is the time since we've last undertaken a review. So it's something that we've not looked at in a long time and that would feature more highly. So it would fall into the plan eventually. Thank you Chairman. Thank you very much. Thank you Mr Towney. Councillor Harvey. Okay, hopefully that's better. Yes, and I just wondered on page 32, section 8.10, you said that the breadth of coverage has reduced compared to previous years. And I just wondered, would you attribute that mainly to diverting resources to our response to the pandemic? Or is it perhaps also because the actual mechanics of auditing becomes more difficult in an online environment? Obviously we might be doing more of that in future so it's just interesting to know if it's more difficult online. Thank you Chairman. Thank you. I think that's a really good question because it's fun that I've had a conversation with my team about a lot over the last 12 months, 24 months. And certainly the resources that we've been focusing on business grants has been a diversion. And if we've not undertaken any audit reviews whatsoever, I think that would certainly be a concern, which is why I was pleased to maintain some audit resource across various different areas of the council. And hopefully, you know, let's be positive that's going to come back and we're going to have a more sort of normal plan going forwards. I think the second point in terms of delivery and certainly a risk we highlighted within the team was about the ability to audit people because they could be diverting themselves or it could be tricky to access or meet with them. But I'm relatively relaxed about that because we're quite skilled up to work remotely. One of the benefits actually as a shared service is that we were used to working amongst multiple sites and working digitally. And we were very early adopters of the technology being rolled out for the council anywhere project. So we're often seen as sort of leaders within the council at working remotely and dynamically. So I think on the whole we can cope really, really well to that. There certainly will be certain audits where we'll require a physical presence and more classic type audits. We do things like stock checks and things like that, but for the most part we can work quite well digitally perhaps smarter and we constantly going through a sort of continuous improvement programme. We're trying to do a lot of self service because it helps to reduce the burden on the teams that we're auditing. So it's a bit of a win-win for all. So I think we're OK. Yes, I'd just like to ask a question about page 15 where it gives a comparison of the proportion of time spent in certain ordered areas in the previous year with an estimate of what's coming up in the current year. The noticeable difference there is previously 33% of the time has been spent on other resource provisions. And then you're forecasting that up to half of the time will be spent in that area. And from the notes on that area in the subsequent pages, it seems as though catching up on projects that have been delayed because of the focus on business grants and COVID is a big part of that shift. Are you concerned that that could snowball when we could get this backlog of projects that sees that proportion of time spent increasing and moving away from those other areas which are of course important to the functioning of the council? Thank you. I think it's realistic. I think it's a short term change and I would hope to return to normal. I mean, certainly when we sort of looked at planning last year, at the beginning of COVID, we knew we're going to be doing a certain amount of support, looking at business grants. And that at the time there was really only sort of three schemes in operation. And we know from experience that, looking back over last year, certainly there have been a lot more grant schemes which have been so vital to getting resources out to people in need. Even, and this is why I've got it as a large forecast in the plan this year. Even after the grant schemes have finished, we know from conversations with BASE, the Department of Business and Infrastructure, that there will be a significant amount of post-assurance reporting, which we need to complete. And also we need to do further data sharing exercises by sort of sharing data with bodies like HMRC as well. So, there is still going to be a certain volume of activity going even after the last grants have been paid. But I see that as being a short term because we're not expecting at this stage any more grant schemes to come into operation. Thank you. Further questions? I'd like to thank Jonathan for his report and the committee has asked to note his report. Thank you. Agenda item 5, extend order update on the 2018-19 accounts. May I ask Suresh Patel to present this item? Thank you, Chair. Good morning to members of the committee. I'll take the report as read, but I do want to obviously pull out some key messages and an update on where we are. So, as you know, we commenced the audit back in October last year, and at that stage we flagged issues around the fixed asset register and the associated accounting and disclosure around property balance and equipment. We've had successive agreements from the Council about when those issues would be resolved, and we've had to then flex our resources to ensure we had people available to audit the results and outputs. Unfortunately, the Council has still not resolved the issues, and it did yesterday was the latest agreed deadline for that. We did receive some information, but not sufficient to resolve the fundamental issues around the fixed asset register and the property plans and equipment accounting and disclosure. Our ability now to flex resources has pretty much been exhausted. That's largely because we are now in the middle of other local government audits that we've had scheduled in since late last year. It's obviously also impacted by my own departure from EY at the end of next week, and Mark Russell, who's managing the audit, is on paternity leave for the whole of August. So, as a result, we will clearly not be signing the audit off next week. EY's senior partner for Public Sector Janet Dawson will be taking over from me as the partner in charge. We propose that we will use the time that we had scheduled in October this year to carry out the 1920 accounts audit. We'll use that time to complete the 1819 audit. We do have some other audit procedures that we are hoping to complete next week, which includes the going concern work. And I just want to clarify on that going concern that that is not about challenging whether or not the council is an actual going concern. Clearly, as a Public Sector entity, there is a presumption that you continue in terms of the services you provide. We are looking at the assessment that you've made in respect of your finances and how that gets disclosed in the accounts. We've got some queries that we're following through with Peter and his team. So, just finally, we are extremely disappointed and frustrated to be put in this position. And I'm personally, obviously, very disappointed that I'm ending my engagement with the council in this way. But clearly, that is where we are at. I'm sure you have questions, Chairman. We're obviously happy to take questions. Any questions from the committee? Thank you, Chairman. Just a couple. I mean, you've referenced, obviously, now that we've sort of missed a window, as it were. So, what is your view of when we can realistically think that these accounts will be finished? And also, when we will get to a point where we will be on time going forward with future accounts? Sort of how long do you think it will take us to catch up? I remember challenging as well before our value for money. Obviously, we have a value for money strategy. It's taxpayer's money. We've got your sort of fee chart, but there's a big blank. And I'm a bit worried about the line with the big blank in it. How much do you think these delays will inevitably cost us and the taxpayer? Thank you, Chairman. OK. I think there's kind of three questions there, which I can partly kind of respond to. I'm sure officers will have a view, too. In terms of when the audit will be finished, clearly it's wholly dependent on when the council resolves its issue with its fix-asset register and the related accounting and disclosures that go with that. Until that happens, then, obviously, we can't put a timeline on when the audit will be completed. But we have, as I say, got resources scheduled in October, which we can use if that is resolved before then. We would look to then complete the audit in October. In terms of catching up again, that is wholly dependent on the council's ability to prepare its, well, completely 18, 19, clearly, but also then prepare 19, 20 in an adequate fashion, as well as 20, 21, and then 21, 22. So I wouldn't like to say when the council will be in a position to have caught up. I think officers would have a view on that. And in terms of fees, you're right. Obviously, given the situation that we're in, we can only give some sort of indications of what those fees may be, but there will be additional fees with Janet Dawson now having to come in and take over from me. Clearly, we don't know how much work we need to do on the fix-asset register resolution when it does happen until we see that. So, again, I can't really put a figure on what the final fee will be at this moment. Thank you, Chairman. If our officers from the council are able to answer them, if you want me to leave that for the next item, then there we are. We'll be coming on to Peter's report. I'm sure Peter's making those questions and will respond accordingly. Any further questions for Suresh? I'll ask a question. You're saying it's going to be completed at 18, 19 for October, hopefully. Is the expectation that there will be a run into 1920, or is 1920 going to be delayed until March next year? I repeat myself, but it obviously depends on when and how the council resolves the understanding issues. Clearly, if that suggests that there's further work that the council itself needs to do to preparation of those 1920 accounts, it may well obviously delay your preparation, which obviously then would have a knock-on effect of the audit. So it is wholly dependent on how the council resolves the issues that are currently outstanding. Apart from the fixed-asset register issue, is everything else to a satisfactory standard? We do have, like I say, a handful of other audit procedures that we are aiming to complete by then next week. You can take the fact that in our report, I think we've got one audit adjustment that we're reporting, and that's it. So the rest of the accounts are supported by evidence and supported by working papers, and we are able to reconcile those to the control accounts that we would expect. Yes, the rest of the accounts look appropriate at the moment, given where we are. Apart from the fixed-asset register, I'm trying to look on the positives. Could we say that the accounts for 18-19, except for the fixed-asset register, are in a better position than 17-18? Yes, I think that's a fair comment. I just wanted to get some positivity. OK, any questions? Before we move on to ask the questions of officers, I wanted to ask if you yourself have a view of the council's progress in addressing the issues with the fixed-asset register. What was the last update that you had from the council on that? So in terms of the fundamental issue, in terms of assurance that you've got a fixed-asset register that then reconciles with what you've got in your accounts, that you still understand, and I'm looking at Mark, who might be able to give more details on that. I'm not sure where the council is on that process at the moment, so again, I suspect Peter can provide an update. In terms of the surplus assets issue that we've reported, we did have something on that yesterday. It has presented some more questions that we are posing, because there are now some of those assets that do have a value, because they've been disposed of, and some of those assets no longer exist, but there's still, I think, over half of that population that the council is still trying to get assurance on what they are and do they have a value. It's more progress on that, but not, obviously, sufficient to move forward. Mark, anything you want to add on that? No, I don't think so. I think the opening, the real crux of that fundamental issue around the PPE and the fixed-asset register that's the racial issue is around the opening position versus the closing position in 1718. So the new fixed-asset register doesn't reconcile or didn't, it has moved on, as of yesterday, a little bit, but it's that reconciliation between where the council was at a closing position for 1718 accounts versus the opening position for 1819, which has been one of the key issues that's been prevailing through the year, and obviously that's pervasive because the balance is for closing position 1819 obviously feed off the back of the opening position and obviously taking into account the movements in the end. Any further questions from the committee? Councillor Harvey. Yes, thank you, Chair. It's just really a sort of technical query. By the way, I'm new to this committee, so it might be a silly question, but I noticed in Suresh's sort of covering letter it kind of implies that this report is not for sharing publicly and I guess you must have given authority otherwise this would be on pink papers, but just a bit positive by that, I wonder whether there should be a note to that effect in the report. Obviously the report is a public document because it's on your agenda and we don't intend it to be private and confidential. I'm struggling to see where we've said that in the report, but we can remove that. It says in your covering letter that this report is intended solely for the use of the Order of the Corporate Government's Committee. Other members of the council and senior management should not be used for any other purposes or given to any other party without obtaining written consent. Okay, so that is correct and that's kind of standard wording for these kind of reports. It basically said if somebody wants to use it for whatever purposes that they've got then obviously we're not liable for any decisions they make off the back of that, but clearly it is a public document, people can read it and take their own view. Okay, thanks for clarifying. I was just going to say that is to help clarify that that's a standard professional practice for the financial field. If there are no further questions. So I'll thank Suresh for his report and the committee has asked to note this report and I'm sure the committee has passed on our regards to Suresh for his new role this is his final time in front of the committee and we wish him well with his new employer. And thank you for your support over the past few years Suresh. Thank you Jen. Okay, agenda item six is the Order of the 2018 Nighting Counts from Peter Maddock. I invite Peter Maddock to present this report. Right, is that working? So I'll concentrate on the asset register issue to start with. Yes, I have to say I'm extremely disappointed with the way the asset register has gone. It has taken rather longer than I would have liked. I think there have been issues around resourcing that up and COVID related issues but nevertheless I would still accept that we should have been able to have got the asset register in line with our 1718 closing balances by now. I can however say that we have now produced or we are now producing the notes that the auditors require and we have now got the asset register to line up with the 1718 opening balances. That's the assurance I was given yesterday. So once that's passed the auditors hopefully today or maybe tomorrow we can catch up on that and see where we are. As I say, the asset register itself should probably have been brought in some years ago. It's a piece of software that accounts for our fixed assets in line with the SIP for code of practice. Prior to 2007 fixed asset accounting was rather simpler than it is now and it's generally been recognised that in order to account for fixed assets correctly you need software and a system to do that to track all the movements in assets. Now the system was implemented, the start of the implementation was probably a year and a half. It has been difficult to get the information to line up with the accounts. There have been issues on the way. We have two members of staff that run the asset register. They have both received some training though they still need further training and we're learning as we go along. I would welcome Jonathan Tulley's involvement in auditing our fixed asset register. I think that will be a useful piece of added value to make sure that the asset register is reporting things in the way that it should be reporting and to help give us assurance that it's doing what it needs to be doing. I'm confident that going forward that once the asset register is working properly it will be a huge improvement to the way we account for fixed assets. As I say it has taken longer than I would have liked and I think there are a number of reasons for that but I do think we are really in touching distance getting this asset register up and running with the right figures on. Once we do that we will be in a far better place. I'll move on from that. I do think the accounts process for 18-19 has been a far better process than in previous years apart from the asset register. When we did the 17-18 accounts we didn't close the accounts using an asset register in this form. We used spreadsheets and part of the issue in getting the opening balance to agree is getting figures that were on a spreadsheet into a new system and getting them to line up and that has taken rather longer than I would have liked. I do think the other process around the final account have been a significant improvement on 17-18 but I do recognise that the asset register issue has rather overshadowed that and I think that's unfortunate. There's potentially one adjustment to the accounts whereas in 17-18 we had a significant number so there clearly has been some improvement there but I don't want to hide from the fact that progress hasn't been as good as I would have liked under the fixed asset register has caused significant issues. What I will say going forward is that in order to catch up I think we do need to ask members for additional resources. I think we probably need an additional person to work on the asset register so whilst we have to I think we probably need three so that we can expedite the input of information in relation to 19-20 and 21 in as quick a time and as accurately as possible and I think having an additional person to help with that process is absolutely vital. I also think that person needs to be completely and utterly familiar with the asset register that SIPFA have and be somebody that has worked with that system. Obtaining that resource may not be straightforward though I do know one or two people who may possibly be able to assist us there. So I think that's absolutely crucial having an additional person that can help get the asset register up to date as soon as we practically can. As regards the other accounting processes along with the final accounts a lot of the information that goes into the accounts is several years old. The people that prepare the budgets and do the financial monitoring are best placed to provide that information and consequently there's a little bit of a trade off between all of the work that we do but we've given the audit the utmost priority. What I do think though is that we need a further resource that can take some of the pressure off the accountants when they're doing the budget to provide information to the auditors because I think that was part of the delay as well. I think we need an additional resource probably in that area too to support the accountants and also support the lead person who is delivering the accounts themselves. So I guess in summing up if we're going to get this over the line as soon as possible regarding 1890 and future years then I do think we need some additional resources and I think we need to aim as far as practically possible to get this done by March 2022 or as soon as after that is practically possible. And I think as I say I think it means getting some additional resources in getting this sorted out as soon as we possibly can. We obviously do need to speak to Suresh's replacement about what the timeline for that might be because obviously we're reliant on them being able to resource that up as well. So yeah it's not where I would like to be I think we need to have a clear plan going forward and my plan will be to get some additional resources in and to expedite this as quickly as we possibly can and hopefully with the support of external audit we can do that by this time next year. I mean I think as chair of this committee and I know this committee has made reference to the resource issues certainly in the three years that I have been chair that there is almost I'm afraid to say no excuse to say that we have resource issues. We just have to address it. We just have to get people in otherwise we just increase the cost of the audit fees. And whilst appreciating that it is difficult to get the right people then we need to identify and bring in appropriate apprenticeships to train up people so that we have a team progressing through and not be reliant upon trying to get external resource in. So I mean if anybody has any objection to that you have the committee's support to get any resource required subject to meeting the requirements of Councillor John Williams and within the budget. But certainly it has to be done. Thank you chair for that. Councillor Williams. Thank you chairman. On the same sort of lines as yourself I mean when I was looking at this and it's very clear from page three on paragraph 12 that it's acknowledged that additional resources are needed. So I had a little look back and in September 2018 it was referenced. It was understood accountancy was a relatively small section and it was agreed changes were necessary in March 2019. Full time accountant was employed to replace part time arrangements that were put in place under shared services. April 19 new staff had been recruited to accountancy and there was confidence that the council had capacity to complete the necessary work. July 19 it had taken the new administration 18 months as the lead cabinet member but the situation was now being rectified. September 19 visits by EY in early August resulted in queries that had not been responded to in a timely way. I 100% wholly agree and sympathise with Mr Maddox in this situation and with yourself chairman I completely agree we need resources. My concern is I'm now starting to lose confidence because we've been told time and time again over the last few years that we're getting resources. It's been recognised this is not new and as you say yourself there really isn't the excuse. So I think as a committee as we're here to challenge and ensure good governance I think it is time chairman that we actually see the results of these comments and not just the words themselves. So I personally I'm sure other members would like to know how many FTEs do we have now in final accounts how many did we have in September 2018. Let's see what progress has been made and how many do we need. We also need to have reassurance not just in the resources that there but the level of experience and the training that's been provided. I appreciate it would be unusual for a committee to see such granular details but given the situation we still find ourselves. I do worry that we're not doing our duty of scrutinising this properly if we don't ask for these things now and the question of if the council has given enough financial support to get the resources we need. If it requires more funds and that's not currently within the budget then I'm sure there would be full support from this members of the council to revise that budget and make sure that there is the money there because at the moment all we are doing is wasting money. The money that we've spent in external audit fees we could have paid for several more offices. I'm really concerned with the history of this committee here and being told this over and over again and we just seem to be in the same situation. The issue of the fixed asset register that was my first meeting here has been referenced since time began so it is the same common issue as well so I would welcome more resources on that particular issue itself. I think that's my plea and my reasoning for why I think we need to be seeing the numbers now Chairman and I wish Mr Maddox every best of success in trying to recruit and get that in place. I'd also just reference that I think it does genuinely because as a committee our ability to scrutinise and challenge as we were all told in our first I remember most of us apart from maybe Councillor Howe because he's been here since God was a boy but was about that it was important for us to challenge things and back in February 2019 and April 2019 I first raised the issue of the workshop on the toolkit that we should actually be looking at ourselves as members to check that we are doing our job sufficiently. I think I've raised it at nearly every meeting Chairman I'm yet to hear of anything. Let's hope we don't get to the second annual anniversary. It's not quite every meeting but almost every meeting. It'd be great before February 2021 two years later if we could actually have that in place or at least see something about it because I think we need to reflect on ourselves as well. Okay and if I can pick up on your comments and I think what I would expect at the next meeting would be lined with yourself some sort of head count FTE outline of the structure of the finance team and an action plan as to what is going to happen to deliver the required resource so that we can then follow up on that action plan for progress because as Councillor Williams has said we have raised it frequently. I think we have to have some sort of action plan outline to move the finance team and the counting thing forward and give you the support that you require acceptable. Yeah I mean I can confirm since we have now got a deputy section 15 officer that's a new role. We have got somebody who's lead whilst that is two more than we did. I still think based on experience and conversations we've had today more resource into this simply because it does take time to turn things around from the situation we've had so thanks for your support members. Can I just ask a question to Councillor John Williams for his response in terms of budgetary support and support to finance to get that resource in place? Yeah well we have never held back on providing support for finance and in fact this year we increased the budget for finance as you know so whatever resources required we're very happy to agree to it. Any further questions from the committee? Councillor Howells. Thank you Chairman. Chairman I have every sympathy for the portfolio holder for resources because I mean the thing is if there's any extra money for staff planning, housing, waste and all going to be shouting for that and we don't want people in the back office. And so I have every sympathy when you know it's the front line staff that normally get the first dibs and any extra money for staff however it has been the poor cousin to all the other services and we got to show that we are monitoring and looking after things correctly so I do hope that this committee can as you say support the additional officer in the finance team. It is really a required and it is about time now that we give out full resources to the team and we can help them as much as possible. We will always require housing officers, we will always require staff in the waste and in planning but we've now got to look at our own internally as well so I'm happy to support this measure as much as I possibly can. Councillor John Williams. Can I just come back on that point that I mean it's not a matter of either or you know it's not a matter of employing finance staff over housing staff or planning staff if we need more finance staff we will employ more finance staff if we need more housing we will employ more housing staff it's not a matter of trading off one against the other. Any further questions for Councillor Sample? Yes I think as the Councillor Williams and the Chair referred to the experience so far within this committee has been one of you know fairly familiar between each committee meeting where typically on the cusp of sorting out the issues with the accounts and it's just around the corner and then we meet again several months later to find that there are delays. There are delays that weren't foreseen. Resourcing clearly from your own assessment is an issue and that's been discussed in terms of a plan of action. I just wondered how is there, do you feel that there's an issue there around how we as a council measure our progress through this process so that we're able to accurately portray where we are in the process or is it simply that there is a process of discovery and we never know what's around the corner. I mean when will we get on top of that issue from your perspective? I think that's a good point because I think when I joined the authority I had a fairly clear plan in my head of when I thought we could do things. I think it's fair to say perhaps I was over optimistic and I think you know we have had a plan to get things on track as soon as possible and for whatever reason that's not quite materialised so I think we probably do need a bit more of an analysis going forward but exactly when we can realistically achieve the things that we need to achieve. We have to wait by this time next year for the next meeting. I'll endeavour to produce a detailed plan on what resources we need to achieve it because I think that's absolutely crucial and I have to say I underestimated the amount of resources that we need to put into this. Can it just follow a question? One is the type of resource required, the amount of resource required, the other is the type and I wondered is there a project management need here in terms of being able to assign work to officers, I'm not sure how this works, perhaps you could describe it, assign work on a monthly basis with targets and then you would be able to report on the extent to which those targets have been met delays what rolls on to the next month and then perhaps give a clearer view of when the issues might be resolved. And actually my deputy 151 officer who was appointed in February she has considerable experience in that sort of thing so I would be intending for her to lead and the process. I haven't put her onto the 18-19 account simply because it wasn't part of it. Maybe I could have done, maybe that might have expedited the process a bit more. My thinking was that for 1920 she sort of leads on that process and she has got experience, whether you call it project management, I would probably say it's sort of weekly updates and making sure everything's kept on track and my intention will be for her to lead on that but equally we do need additional resources and the right resource. I don't know how easy it will be to get the right resource for the asset register, I'm aware of somebody who would be able to fulfil that whether they're available or not. Certainly for the asset register in particular whilst my two colleagues are getting there they're still not right at the point that they understand the system. Councillor Williams. Thank you Chairman. Just as you know it's great everyone's provided the new resources I think it's as we've said very necessary. I'm just wondering Chairman if it would be advisable as well for us to be really clear when we say the resources that we want employed resources. Because I think something else that's made quite clear actually in the external audit report is that if we have a lot of successive interims which it refers to you don't have the consistency easy for me to say on a Thursday morning and you don't have the history and you lose a wealth of knowledge every time you have a change over and a turnover. So I'm just wondering in the staffing and employment committee we look at things like the stability of services and the turnover whether actually a retention and turnover would be advisable for us to see as well because we could tomorrow get the resource levels that we need, see a report that shows we've got the 12 FTEs that we need but if it's constantly changing particularly with accounts it can have a really big impact so we need some stability in our resources as well. So I just ask that that be taken on board thank you Chairman. I mean if I can add to that comment as well I think it is sometimes easier to get interims than it is to get a parent replacement and there is a limited, this will come on onto another proposal, there is a limited pool of available resource you're almost robbing from other councils to bring them into your council. So there has to be a retention and a security and that's why one of my comments to Peter has been to look at apprenticeships to get a team of, not one apprentice, a team of apprenticeships that you can bring into the finance team because you will do some, some will leave for other councils but hopefully in three or four years time that team progresses through and you have a resource pool of your own making not interims coming in and out and trying to locate parent replacement. Which is difficult in this area as well. So I take on board and I'm sure Peter does the comment but parents yes, interims has an interim resource but let's get a wider pool of apprenticeships to support the finance team and progress and build our own finance team. I'm very much welcome your suggestion of apprenticeships and other, I think there is not a one size fits all approach to this Chairman and I think whatever level we need some consistency now we've had a lot of chain jovers through the various accounts processes we need stability. I mean as regards apprenticeships it's obviously something that's very much on officers radar at the moment and I know that we're intending to appoint, we've got authority to appoint one accounting apprentice. We do have somebody who's going through the account of further apprentices with the chair you know bringing people through from scratch training them up I do believe is the right way forward. You know they learn as they go, I certainly did, I know it's a very long time ago but I came from college and I started sort of like an apprentice but you know I think getting people in young, keen and training them up I agree is the right way forward and I know it's on leadership and members agenda at the moment because I do think that's the way forward and it does pay dividends in the long term. Any other questions from the committee? I've just got a couple more questions Peter, apologies. One of the comments from Suresh's report was around working papers and the quality of those working papers outside of the FICSata register. Are we clear as to the requirements that EY have on their working papers and how do we feel we've got them to a level now that going forward the working papers will meet their requirements? I think from 1780 we had a clear issue with working papers. In 1819 we did see an improvement in working papers. I suspect there's probably room for further improvement but I think we are heading in the right direction. I think with working papers we just have to be very clear that when we do our reconciliations just so that the auditors can see how we've got to our figures. I think in 1819 we have improved. I still think we can probably improve further and if we are able to improve further I think it will speed up the audit as well because I think outside the asset register I think the audit was better but I still think there were some delays there where making sure the working papers were correct. So again we're heading in the right direction. I still don't think we're 100% there but I would say from a fairly low base we're a lot of nothing with anything. A final question for me. We've talked about the FICSata register and there's variances and nil values. In resolving the issues what is the impact if any at all on the finances of the council? Where do those resolutions fall out? I've had a quick glance at the list that was referred to and there are a number of assets on there so they need to come up with the asset register. I haven't looked in detail at the two or three that Suresh referred to but broadly we've still got a little bit more work to do on that. There's obviously some assets that we haven't quite been able to pin down and we'll require input from our housing services department to resolve those issues. So I don't personally believe that the financial impact in relation to these assets will be significant and I can't prove that at the moment. We've obviously done some work but we still need a little bit more work to do. The assets concerned that were sold, I think there was a reference to a couple of assets that had been sold in a nil value. We need to have a look at that and potentially we need to increase the value. We need to have them revalued because at the moment if they're nil and we've sold them for rather more than that then there's a bit of a mismatch there. I can't at the moment say what those issues exactly are but I do know that a number of the assets are items that just need to be removed from the register and shouldn't be there. They've obviously been there for a while. Potentially it should have been picked up earlier but obviously as a result of this audit these have been picked up. So we'll go through the list, we will remove stuff from the asset register, we will get valuations on those assets that remain on the asset register to ensure that the value is appropriate. But I do think a number of the assets referred to are fairly small pieces of housing land which may not have a significant value. However we still need to complete that way. So there was a little bit more work to do on that. But my feeling is, if there were no further questions, comments. Okay, thanks to Peter Maddox for his report. The committee has asked to note his report and I can pass on this committee's continuing support to him and his offices. Gender item 7 matters of topical interest. Item 7 is an opportunity for the committee. Sorry chair, I think we've missed an item, my fault for running your notes. I think we've got the annual forward report I think. It's on the agenda list, it's not on my comment list. So item 7 is the annual forward report. Please introduce this. Shall I introduce this? John, I don't really want to comment. So we now have a corporate fraud team. This was set up during 2020. Prior to that, the fraud function was spread across two departments. In January 2020 the corporate fraud team was created. And my colleague Tara Nugbean King, who's the corporate fraud manager, is joining us to answer any detailed questions either on the report or the fraud strategy. The committee itself has within its terms of reference to monitor the corporate fraud strategy. I believe this is probably the first time a corporate fraud strategy has come to this committee. So once the committee has had a look at the report and the fraud strategy, it will actually need to be adopted by a cabinet and then there will be an ongoing role for this committee to monitor that strategy. As regards the 2021 year, whilst the corporate fraud team was set up during that year, there were of course difficulties during that year because of the fraud investigation and fraud. The fraud process was affected by COVID-19 in that we were unable to take our fraud prosecutions through to completion. So there was a number of difficulties during the year basically progressing our fraud investigations to their completion. Having said that, a lot of work during the year was done in the area of fraud prevention. So my colleague has set up a corporate fraud risk assessment and the idea behind this is to look at every system across the council, assess the fraud risk to make sure that we have controls in place to mitigate those risks as far as possible. So whilst we're unable to progress a lot of the investigation work, there was time and effort put into the prevention work, which I think will pay dividends going forward. I think we've also seen during the pandemic an increase in the incident of fraud, we've had additional referrals and also because of the pandemic there's been a backlog in work which is being tackled by the team. We have a team now of three plus one part-timer, so three and a half FTEs at the moment looking at fraud, doing investigative work, prevention work and detection work. So as far as the corporate fraud function for this authority, we're in a far better place I believe now than we were a year ago and much of that is thanks to our corporate fraud team leader. In bringing together the team to do this work. John, I don't know whether you have any comments. No, just to say that obviously before we set up this specialist team and brought everyone together, the function was dispersed across a number of areas and was very fragmented by bringing this together under terror. We've now got the expertise and the coordinated team to be able to bear down on fraud. I believe that in the past the fraud was never taken that seriously and I think we are now determined that we will ensure that all aspects of council services will be subject to this fraud check. And so far the team has had some successes and I believe this is the way forward for this authority. Any further questions from the committee? I think this, I didn't know where to bring this up in the agenda but I think this is actually a good point. It was raised with a combined authority in their audit committee and I think now that we have a corporate fraud team perhaps it was something that this audit committee needs to consider and I pick up on your point that this is the first time that it's being discussed. Because as part of the audit requirements for the 17 of the 1890 accounts I was asked by EY to write a letter to confirm certain performance criteria around the accounts and also around the corporate governance. So I went through the past three years agenda items and we were really only covering audit. There's a reason for that, we were always covering audit. But there was actually limited scope apart from the annual review process around the corporate governance performance of the council and its audit committees review of that. So what I proposed to the combined authority was rather than having an annual review was to have what I would deem as being standing enquiries. So at the beginning of every meeting of the audit committee you would ask a question to the officers around fraud, around legal issues, whether anything could have risen in the past since the previous meeting. It's not for investigation, it's not for interrogation, it's for information and I would propose that to the committee if they are willing to consider that and we ask the officers to go away and review whether in my day to day job when I meet the first question the officers ask is there standing enquiries. Four or five questions that is a no normally and so if the committee would feel that as we bring on, brought on board this fraud team we also consider introducing standing enquiries at the beginning of each meeting to ask questions around fraud or attempted fraud, any freedom of information requests, any whistleblowing aspects, any legal situations that we need to be aware of. Council Williams. I would be more than happy to support your proposal, I think it would be potentially a very useful thing and a good thing to be monitoring. Any further questions? It's not for agreement, it's just that we can request that the officers go away and consider it and come back with a proposal at the next committee meeting for introduction of standing enquiries to this committee as part of its corporate governance review. Thank you chair, given that within your terms of reference you have fraud strategy monitoring within it, I think that sounds wholly appropriate. So yeah, I think that's fine, I think we can do that. My colleague who leads the team is on the screen. Tyra, do you want to introduce yourself at all? Hi, sorry, nice to meet you. So just for my clarification, we're talking about as you speak with different officers of the council it's a conversation about awareness and about what is current within the fraud agreement within their area, is that what you mean when you're talking about those questions? No, it's really just for the order committee at each meeting to ask a question to the officers if there was anything that has happened since the previous meeting and to be made aware of any actual fraud or attempted fraud. And again, because we're not scrutiny, we're ordering corporate governance, we're here to look at the framework. So if there was a consistent repetition of we've got a fraud issue in council order, then we as the Audit and Corporate Governance Committee want to say, well actually what is the framework around that? Why is that constantly repeating itself? At the moment, we only get annual updates of a list of all the claims during the year. Well, you can't really affect anything going forward. Okay, so sorry if I can just put some context around it. What I've decided to do actually is to do a quarterly rundown of the types of cases where they've originated from, what areas of the authority they actually affect along with the prevention work that's been done. So if it would be useful without obviously the detail to have sight of that, then that's something that we can provide to you. And that might be quite useful for you. Yeah, I think on a regular basis to each meeting if there was an update on the frauds that have occurred since the previous meeting and where they are. Of course, yeah. Yeah, that's no problem. Any further questions? Thank you very much, Sarah. Okay, thank you. Now we're on to information icing, which is the matter of topical interest. May I invite Geoff memory to give an introduction to the ombudsman's report. Good morning, chef. Thank you and good morning members. In your papers, you should have both a letter and an associated spreadsheet from the local government and social care ombudsman about that annual review 2021. If I can first draw members attention to the letter and the statistics provided in relation to South Cambridgeshire start on the third page of that letter. What members will see is that there were a relatively small number of complaints investigated by the ombudsman five. But of those four decisions rub upheld, which gives a percentage of 80% of complaints investigated or upheld compared to an average of 53% in small authorities. Of course, this is impacted a little bit by the fact that with very small numbers like this, just one or two differences in cases make a large difference to the percentage. The next section looks at compliance and of those three cases where the ombudsman made recommendations, the council applied those recommendations fully in 100% of cases. And in the other case where the decision was the complaint against us was upheld, we'd already provided a satisfactory remedy to the complainant. Again, this compares well to other authorities, but again is impacted by the fact that there is only a small number of cases involved for South Cambridgeshire. If I can now ask members to look at the associated spreadsheet, what members will see is that 15 complaints were received by the ombudsman in that year, and that's down from 23 the previous year. So a reduction in complaints of about a third. Of the 17 cases decided by the ombudsman, and again this is down from previous year when there were 20 decided, and of those 17 decided, the ombudsman decided to fully investigate five, which again is down from the previous year when he investigated six. But in this case four were upheld, which is up from the previous year when two were upheld. Of the four applications, so the four complaints where the complaints were upheld by the ombudsman, two related to planning applications, one related to an enforcement case, and one related to a tree preservation order. In all of those cases the ombudsman's recommended compensation was implemented and changes and procedures have been put in place. I'm happy to answer any questions that members may have. Mr McKenna has asked to speak about RIP a usage. Councillor Harvey. Just a detail really. I just wondered if you could explain what the shorthand MAL and INGE means against some of the decision reasons. MAL stands for MAL administration, in other words we've made a mistake and INGE stands for injustice. It's not sufficient for us to have made a mistake, but that mistake must have caused injustice to the complainant. Just a question for me, where we have the remedy and it says financial redress, is that disclosed anywhere in a table of ranges of financial redress? There isn't a table of ranges, but the financial redress in each case is published. In the case of all of these complaints, the financial redress was relatively low. For the two planning application cases, a financial redress was £300 for one and £150 for another. For the enforcement case, because it related to somebody who was suffering from a disability, the payments were slightly higher. There were two people involved and one, the payment was £300 and the other £550. For the tree preservation order case, the compensation was £200. So the total for all of the cases was £1,950. That's my question. Any questions from any of the members of the committee? Thank you Chairman. Just obviously following on from these cases, because it does say it's avoidable distress and time and obviously that's got to be regrettable on behalf of the council. Are we confident or that we've addressed these issues and they don't get repeated? Because I'm sure none of us want to hear of residents being put through distress at our hands as a council. Indeed, in most cases, the recommended change related to reminding staff of processes that were already in place and that's all been done. In the case of the enforcement, there was a suggested change to arrangements for investigating cases where somebody was suffering from a disability and those procedures have been changed. Chairman, thank you. As the process is required changing on the grounds of somebody that had a disability, can I suggest that we look beyond and perhaps has already happened that we look beyond the service area that was just in relation to that case and make sure that there isn't a repetition and that we are treating people equally. Thank you. If I can respond, yes, at our management team meeting yesterday, all senior managers were reminded of the need to undertake equality impact assessments for making changes to processes and policies, which hopefully will stop anything that is happening again. Okay, Councillor House. Thank you Chairman. Chairman, we're a very, very large organisation in a sense and we make many decisions affecting many people's lives and I think occasionally we do make mistakes. We've got to accept that but at the same time I think it's very impressive that we've made so few mistakes when you consider the amount of decisions that we make on a daily basis, not just in this chamber but also in this building with regard to our officers. So I think what we've seen today is acceptable. I think that it's been handled well with regards to compensation to those people involved. We have to acknowledge the fact that it does cause distress to people but at the same time we've remedied that and I think we should accept this report. Thank you. Any further comments? No further comments, I thank Mr Memory for his report and the committee has asked to note the report. The date of the next meeting is Tuesday the 28th of September at 10am. Obviously, of course. Apologies, Rory. He wants to come in on the rip end. I did indeed and thank you Chair. Chair, this is going to be very, very quick because I am pleased to report that there has been no rip out usage within the last quarter but the terms of reference require me to report that. I didn't see fit to produce a report because I thought it was necessary hence why I'm picking it up under matters of topical interest. Thank you very much. That input is noted by the committee. Thank you. Okay. The date of the next meeting is Tuesday the 28th of September at 10am. I thank everybody for attending the committee and wish you all a nice summer. Thank you Chairman. Thank you very much everybody.