Agenda and minutes

Venue: Bromley Civic Centre

Contact: Steve Wood  020 8313 4316

Items
No. Item

84.

APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE AND NOTIFICATION OF SUBSTITUTE MEMBERS

Minutes:

There were no apologies for absence.

85.

DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

Minutes:

Councillor Simon Fawthrop declared an interest as an employee of British Telecom.

86.

CONFIRMATION OF THE MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD ON 8th JUNE 2021 (EXCLUDING THOSE CONTAINING EXEMPT INFORMATION) pdf icon PDF 324 KB

Minutes:

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting held on 8th June 2021 be agreed as a correct record.  

87.

QUESTIONS TO THE AUDIT SUB COMMITTEE FROM COUNCILLORS OR MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC

In accordance with the Council’s Constitution, questions that are not specific to reports on the agenda must have been received in writing 10 working days before the date of the meeting. 

 

Questions specifically concerning reports on the agenda should be received within two working days of the publication date of the agenda.  Please ensure that questions specifically regarding reports on the agenda are received by the Democratic Services Team by 5pm on 15th October.

 

Questions should be no more than 50 words and can be asked orally at the meeting or can be for written response. Questions can be emailed to stephen.wood@bromley.gov.uk

 

Minutes:

No questions were received.

88.

MATTERS OUTSTANDING FROM THE LAST MEETING--(Excluding Exempt Information) pdf icon PDF 372 KB

Minutes:

CSD  21114

 

Members noted the Matters Outstanding report and that most of the issues were being updated upon in the body of the Internal Audit Progress report.

 

Members discussed the matter of the possibility of undue influence that could be exercised by former Council employees who had previously worked in the Council’s Planning Department and now working as planning consultants in the private sector. A Member commented that in his view, the same officer should not be writing a planning report and then giving advice on the same planning application. He mentioned other concerns where in some cases a Councillor had either worked for a developer or had been married to one. He suggested that Internal Audit should draw up protocols concerning how officers from the Planning Department should work. He felt that guidance was required for both Members and officers.

 

A Member agreed with these comments and stated that in her view this was a matter that needed attention. She expressed the view that the current Standards Committee process was flawed and that there had been clear instances of influence with respect to Planning. Any way that Internal Audit could assist going forward would be of benefit to the integrity of the Council. 

 

The Head of Audit and Assurance stated that issues had been raised previously and some of these concerns had been dealt with at the time. Internal Audit was planning to undertake an audit with respect to Planning later this year, and this would be undertaken by Mazars as they could bring into the audit the experience that they had gained when dealing with similar issues in other local authorities. They were aware that concerns had been raised. The Head of Audit and Assurance said that it was possible to build in appropriate controls and processes. He would be having a meeting soon with the new Director of Corporate Services and would raise these issues with her. He felt that much of what had been discussed was a matter of conduct and therefore may be more appropriate to be looked at by the Standards Committee.

 

A Member commented that some social interactions with anyone submitting a planning application would be below the threshold required to make a declaration. However, in his view (as it was still a social interaction) then it still should be declared. Reference was also made to planning applications submitted by Councillors and that it may be prudent to introduce some aspect of independent oversight in these particular circumstances. The Chairman re-iterated his view that the Standards Committee should lead, supported by Internal Audit.

 

A Member felt that it would be useful to ask the Standards Committee to look at the involvement of Councillors in various enterprises that may have an impact on key issues in addition to the matters raised regarding Planning. He felt that this would be an issue that the Standards Committee would be interested in looking at and this should be highlighted to the Chairman of the Standards Committee.

 

A  ...  view the full minutes text for item 88.

89.

INTERNAL AUDIT PROGRESS REPORT pdf icon PDF 612 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

FSD21058

 

At the previous meeting, an update had been received concerning the ongoing issues regarding the possibility of a power failure to the data centre. As this had been ongoing and a matter of concern for some time, a further update had been requested for this meeting. To this end Vinit Shukle (Assistant Director for IT Services) attended the meeting in person, whilst Sara Bowrey (Director of Housing, Planning and Regeneration) and Mike Watkins( Assistant Director for Strategic Property) attended by conference call.

 

The Director of Housing, Planning and Regeneration informed the Committee that a firm date had now been arranged for all contractors to attend on site to finally resolve the issue. This had been confirmed for the weekend commencing Friday, November 26—that would be when all the back-up work would take place. Work on replacing the switch would take place over the weekend of 27th-28th, with the system being back up and running on Monday 29th November. The Oracle financial system would need to be tested on Monday 29th due to the availability of a specialist contractor.

 

The Assistant Director for Strategic Property acknowledged Member frustration and outlined the difficulties that had had been experienced when attempting to arrange for multiple contractors to be available on site at the same time.

 

A Member asked if a roll back plan was ready if the work planned for that weekend failed. The Assistant Director for IT Services responded and said that data backups would be taken initially--prior to the work being handed over to the Facilities Team. If the contractors encountered difficulties and felt that the work was going to fail, then the Council would be alerted and the Data Centre back up would be reinstated.

 

A Member commented that although it was good that the matter was now hopefully coming to a successful conclusion, Members should not forget the history of the issue and stop asking questions. It was important to understand why this matter had taken so long to resolve, so that steps could be taken to ensure that it did not happen ever again. The Member also queried as to whether or not there were other vulnerable parts in the system that could cause similar problems to the Council in the future.

 

The Assistant Director for Strategic Property responded to the question as to why the matter had taken so long to resolve. He said that historically this was an old piece of kit and that no one had really understood its criticality. No one in the past had really taken time to consider properly what would happen if the system failed. It had also been the case historically that the Council had not benefited from having access to all of the relevant specifications of the UPS. Resultantly, a shutdown had been required to look at specifications, parts and methodology.

 

Another contributing factor had been the poor service that had been received from Amey who were the previous Facilities Management contractor. After dispensing  ...  view the full minutes text for item 89.

90.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT 1972 AS AMENDED BY THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT (ACCESS TO INFORMATION) (VARIATION) ORDER 2006 AND THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000

  The Chairman to move that the Press and public be excluded during consideration of the item of business listed below as it is likely in view of the nature of the business to be transacted or the nature of the proceedings that if members of the Press and public were present there would be disclosure to them of exempt information.

Minutes:

RESOLVED that the press and public be excluded during consideration of the items of business listed below as it was likely in view of the nature of the business to be transacted or the nature of the proceedings, that if members of the press and public were present, there would be disclosure to them of exempt information.

91.

INTERNAL AUDIT FRAUD AND EXEMPT ITEMS REPORT

Minutes:

FSD21059

 

As this was a Part 2 (confidential report) the minutes are noted in the Part 2 minutes.

92.

MATTERS OUTSTANDING--PART 2

Minutes:

CSD 21101 

 

As this was a Part 2 (confidential report) the minutes will be noted in the Part 2 minutes.

 

 

93.

EXEMPT MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD ON 8th JUNE 2021

Minutes:

The exempt minutes of the meeting held on the 8th of June 2021 were noted and agreed as a correct record.