Issue - meetings

Report FSD16075

The Sub-Committee considered a report informing Members of recent audit activity undertaken across the Council and providing an update on matters arising from previous meetings of Audit Sub-Committee.

Progress had been made across existing Priority One recommendations comprising Domiciliary Care, Creditors, Manorfields, Stray Dogs Contract Follow Up, Blenheim Primary School and Penalty Charge Priority Notices.  The Priority One recommendations for the Transition Team and Extra Care Housing were still outstanding following follow-up audits.  The Rent Arrears Priority One had now been subsumed in the Temporary Accommodation audit reported in Part 2 of this agenda. A number of new Priority One recommendations had also been identified comprising NNDR (Business Rates), Community Infrastructure Levy, Document Storage and Retention and Learning Disabilities.

In considering the Priority One recommendations relating to Domiciliary Care, a Member noted that at the time of the initial audit, a sample of 44 cases had been selected for review, with issues identified in 14 cases relating to the dates of service and, in one case, non-closure.  The Member requested clarification around the sample size in relation to the total number of Domiciliary Care cases and this would be provided to Members following the meeting.

With regard to the significant number of orders that were found to be raised retrospectively as part of the original Internal Audit report on Creditors, Members were informed that 1366 retrospective orders had been raised between June 2016 to August 2016, which was a significant drop of 36% on the previous Quarter, and would again be followed up in the Creditors Audit 2016/17 due in Quarter 4 2016/17.

The follow-up review on Stray Dogs Contract had been undertaken and concluded that of the five outstanding Priority One recommendations, two had been fully implemented relating to waivers and value for money.  The three recommendations relating to contract monitoring, payment of invoices and collection of income had been partially implemented and it had been acknowledged that the service had made significant progress in all three areas and warranted a Priority Two recommendation.  Details of the follow-up review would be reported to Contracts Sub-Committee in connection to lessons learned and the way the contract had been handled.

In relation to the second Priority One recommendation for Manorfields on compliance with Contract Procedure Rules, Members were advised that the monitoring of the final account for this work would shortly be completed and would be audited, and that an update would be provided to the next meeting of Audit Sub-Committee in April 2017.  The recommendation would be kept open until the work had been completed and reviewed by Internal Audit.  In response to a question from a Member around Officer training, the Head of Audit reported that Internal Audit had recently met with the Corporate Leadership Team to outline three training awareness packages around Audit Controls, Fraud and Corruption and Risk Management that would be rolled out to all Officers in early 2017.  Members underlined the need to ensure that temporary or locum Officers were also given access  ...  view the full minutes text for item 20