Issue - meetings

Report ES19043

Following an internal audit of the Arboriculture Services Contract during the third quarter 2018/19, the subsequent audit report made four priority 1 recommendations and six priority 2 recommendations. As the contract was due to end in March 2019 audit sought to highlight areas of weakness and to improve management and monitoring of a new contract from April 2019.

The arboriculture team had significant resourcing issues at the time of the audit; the Service Manager had recently left L B Bromley employment and in January 2019 a further post became vacant leaving three tree officers, one of whom became Interim Service Manager (ISM). With limited time for a formal handover of responsibilities, the ISM had managed exit of the old contract and mobilising of the new contract. Recruitment was currently underway to fill the vacancies.

Report ES19043 summarised each recommendation along with a progress update on delivering them. The findings are outlined in further detail in Audit Report ECS/7/2018/AU considered by the Audit Sub-Committee at their meeting on 4th June 2019. 

Members were updated on progress and reference was made to implementation of a contract and performance management framework from 1^st April 2019. The Head of Performance Management and Business Support was confident that measures are now in place to ensure that similar problems do not re-occur. Reference was also made to recruitment issues and the current Interim Service Manager was commended for stepping up to the role. The Head of Performance Management and Business Support had also met with the auditor. Having detailed the financial processes now in place, the auditor was happy with progress made. The matter would be considered again at the Committee’s November meeting (when considering the new Glendale Arboriculture contract).

The Head of Performance Management and Business Support also referred to the position on defaults which should have been issued and payment recovered. As the final invoice had yet to be submitted by the outgoing contractor for payment, the (total) default is yet to be applied, but would be deducted from the final contract payment to the Service Provider. A default figure had been agreed. The Head of Performance Management and Business Support also confirmed that the Council holds a bond from the contractor should they not pay the default sum. 

RESOLVED that the report be noted.