Issue - meetings

Report FSD17051

The Head of Audit presented the Internal Audit Progress Report which was intended to inform Members of recent audit activity across the Council and to provide updates on matters arising from the previous Audit Sub-Committee meetings.

The Sub-Committee noted the latest list of outstanding priority one recommendations attached at Appendix A of the report.  A Member suggested that in the interests of transparency, in future, all the reports with Priority 1 recommendations should be named in part 1 of the agenda.

In relation to the Priority 1 recommendation concerning St Paul’s Cray CE Primary School, the Head of Audit reported that a number of other issues had been picked up during the audit process which were being addressed.  The Sub-Committee was advised that the recommendation pertaining to cash handling at St Paul’s Cray CE Primary School remained open.

The Sub-Committee were informed that a school had received an overpayment of relief on NNDR (National Non Domestic Rates) of £103,499 as the date on which it converted to an Academy had been miscalculated. This money had now been reimbursed to the Council.

Members were updated concerning the liability of businesses to pay the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL). There had been two priority one recommendations made in the original audit relating to the identification of CIL liable cases and the need for spot checks. It had been estimated in the previous audit that 48 cases had been identified where CIL liability had not been recorded. The Committee was briefed that the number of original assessments for liability subsequently fell to 41 and 3 of these had made payments totalling £8,126. Another 14 cases had CIL liability orders issued, totalling £79,655.

There had been a priority 1 recommendation for management to run a report from UNIFORM to identify planning applications made since 1 April 2015 where CIL liability had not been assessed and recorded. This recommendation was now regarded as implemented.

There had been a second priority 1 recommendation regarding CIL spot check visits, and this was also regarded as implemented.

Members were provided with an update following the previous audit on the Learning Disabilities Service where there had been three priority one recommendations relating to Assessments, Care and Support Plans and Service Agreements. It was noted that the recommendation relating to Assessments remained outstanding. The recommendations concerning care and support plans and service level agreements would be looked it in a future audit.

Concerning document retention and storage, Members were reminded that previously there had been two priority one recommendations relating to contract monitoring, invoice checking, cumulative expenditure and also the requirement to undertake a comprehensive review of documents in storage. The former recommendation was considered to be implemented, whilst the latter recommendation was still open.  A Member stressed the need to ensure that the costs for retrieval and return were not a disincentive to review documents that were held in storage.  It was recognised that there would need to be a review of all the information held in storage  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8