Issue - meetings

Members were appraised regarding progress made concerning the previous 4 Priority 1 recommendations that had been made with respect to Strategic Property. The Head of Audit and Assurance said that three out of the previous four recommendations had been implemented. However, the target to hit £1m savings via the Income Generation Plan had not been reached. The Head of Asset and Investment Management attended the Committee to update on this matter and to answer any questions that Members wished to ask.

The Head of Asset and Investment Management explained that a report had gone to the Executive, Resources and Contracts Committee in November 2019, whereby Cushman and Wakefield (C&W) had estimated that they had achieved savings up to that point of £850k. It was explained that C&W were contractually not entitled to any incentive payments unless they had achieved real savings of £1m or more.

The Head of Asset and Investment Management expressed the view that some of the savings that had been claimed by C&W had been achieved prior to out sourcing. He said that eight areas where C&W had claimed to have made savings were invalid. This meant the £850k figure would reduce. Resultantly, no incentive payment had been paid to C&W. It was reported that C&W had not been providing support to local teams on site, and had been penalised for this. The Head of Asset and Investment Management expressed the view that the £1m target would not be achieved.

A Member referred to the figure of eight cases where the savings outlined were likely to be invalid. He asked what this meant in percentage terms. Mr Watkins answered that the list of savings/income generation received from C&W contained a total of 70-80 items, and so the percentage was in the region of 10%. The £1m income generation target was over a three year period. It was explained that the total value of the eight cases being removed from the list relating to income generation would account for income in the region of £77k. If this figure was therefore deducted from the £850k figure claimed by C&W, it would mean that in real terms C&W would need to produce in the region of another £225k in savings to hit the income generation target. 

Members were presented with the Internal Audit Progress Report which updated Members of recent audit activity across the Council and provided updates on matters that had arisen from previous meetings of the Committee. Members were being asked to note and comment on the report. They were also being asked to note the list of Internal Audit Reports that had been published on the Council’s website.

Members were informed that the audit of the Transformation Programme had gone well and the audit opinion was ‘Substantial’.

The Head of Audit and Assurance appraised Members regarding the Council Tax audit, the purpose of which was to review governance and mitigate risk. The audit had resulted in two Priority  ...  view the full minutes text for item 32