Issue - meetings

Report ES19070

In June 2019 Members received an update on findings from an internal audit report on the Arboriculture Services Contract (Report ES19043), the audit highlighting four Priority 1 recommendations and six Priority 2 recommendations.

Since the audit (in Quarter 3, 2018/19), the arboriculture Interim Service Manager has been appointed Service Manager and an Arboriculture Officer position has been accepted by a suitable officer. A second Arboriculture Officer post will be advertised as a development opportunity and include on-the-job training and an Arboriculture qualification.

A progress report to Audit Sub-Committee on 17^th October 2019 (Report FSD19081) highlighted all four P1 recommendations as open. For the Payment Process recommendation, audit were satisfied in October that good progress has been made, particularly as payment responsibilities for Arboriculture have been transferred to the Performance Management and Business Support Team and there is a clear separation of financial duties.  Clear documented payment processes are now in place. The Performance Management Framework has also been tested for six months of the new contract and is implemented. As such, the recommendation is partially implemented although further time is necessary to demonstrate effective implementation and testing of all new processes.

The recommendation on Open Orders and Confirm was considered in two parts - cleansing of data on Confirm for the previous contract and the number and value of open orders since April 2019. With allocated jobs finally processed on Confirm by the previous contractor, the final payment certificate/invoice for March 2019 was submitted to the Council on 31^st October 2019. Following a review of the schedule of works submitted with the invoice (as evidence for payment) and a deduction for defaults, a final payment sum had been agreed for processing (during week beginning 11^th November 2019). For the current contract, 1057 jobs have been delivered and paid for as at 4^th November 2019 with 275 remaining jobs on the system completed and awaiting payment in the October 2019 invoice and 248 jobs accepted by the contractor but awaiting completion (for payment on completion in November’s invoice). The recommendation remains outstanding until the final invoice from the previous contract is paid.

For the contract monitoring recommendation, Report ES19070 outlined the performance monitoring regime of job inspections - monitoring visits having to be completed before monthly meetings of the Service Operations Board (SOB). Procedures are documented for quality monitoring checks and for quantitative checks (part of invoice payment). A management report (being developed) will also highlight each job’s status and be added to the Confirm Dashboard; the contractor and client can then monitor/control the progress of tasks more easily. Audit also considered SOB minutes (May to September) a comprehensive record of discussions and agreed actions. Additionally, further training is being delivered by BT to the Service Provider and Performance Management and Business Support Team concerning problems at contract commencement on accessing Confirm and uploading information. SOB minutes evidence consideration of the contract KPI’s in line with the new Performance  ...  view the full minutes text for item 35