Agenda and minutes

To receive any apologies for absence.

There were no apologies for absences.

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 17^th April 2023.

The minutes of the meeting held on 17^th April 2023 were confirmed and signed.

To disclose any pecuniary, other registrable or non-registrable interest as set out in the adopted Code of Conduct.  In making their decision councillors are asked to state the agenda item, the nature of the interest and any action they propose to take as part of their declaration.

If required, further advice should be sought from the Monitoring Officer in advance of the meeting.

No declarations of disclosable pecuniary interests were made at the meeting.

To receive questions or statements on the business of the committee from town and parish councils and members of the public.

When submitting a question please indicate who the question is for and include your name, address and contact details.  Questions and statements received in line with the council’s rules for public participation will be published as a supplement to the agenda.

The deadline for submission of the full text of a question or statement is 8.30am on 7^th June 2023.

There was no public participation.

To note the minutes of the Audit & Governance Hearing Sub-committee (if any meetings have been held).

There were no Sub-committee minutes to note.

To receive a report by Heather Lappin, Head of Strategic Finance.

The Corporate Director for Finance and Commercial introduced the report to update the committee on the delay of the preparation of the 2022/23 final accounts. The committee was informed that the 2022/23 statement of accounts were due to be completed in draft form for publication by the 31^{st of} May 2023 which was 2 months earlier than the last few years and the submission is now overdue. Nationally, 74% of the opinions from 2021/2022 were still outstanding of the 21^st March 2023.

There were three issues still outstanding for preparation of the accounts and the finance team were dealing with multiple financial year close downs for 2020/21, 2021/2022 and working on 2022-2023. The budget monitoring for the current financial year 2023/24 had just started and the team are also working on setting the budget for 2024/25. The finance team were under a lot of pressure, dealing with 5 financial years at the same time.

The contractor who was assigned to undertake the valuations for 2022/23 was behind schedule in its valuation of circa 350 assets. Deloitte advised that due to delays on prior year end accounts, they were unable to commence 2022-23 audits.

In January 2023, CIPFA offered a temporary solution which changed the notes to the accounts to report the gross accumulated depreciation. The council are working with Deloitte to review the appreciation values of our infrastructure assets which delayed the 2021/2022 and 2022/2023 accounts. 

Cllrs asked questions such as, capacity issues, the additional contractor capacity, issues that had not been resolved, asset values and the practical significance.

In response to the questions about capacity issues, the Corporate Director for Assets and Property informed that two additional external contractors had been employed and an internal resources staff to balance the load and were releasing capacity to deal with the council’s work. The Section 151 officer made the committee aware that they were able to buy in finance capacity to deal with these issues, but this wouldn’t necessarily resolve the situation due to the delays around the valuation. 

Ian Howse from Deloitte responded to Cllr Legg’s question regarding the practicality of infrastructure asset valuation and over what period infrastructure assets were devalued. Lots of work was being conducted concerning the useful asset lives over which infrastructure assets were depreciated and valued and this resulted in the 2020/21 accounts being delayed.

Ian Howse highlighted that it was very important that the committee understood that these were national issues and agreed that these accounts needed to be completed. The committee was told that the draft accounts will be published in July.

Decision

The report was noted.

To receive a report by Marc Eyre, Service Manager for Assurance.

The Service Manager for Assurance introduced the report which followed on from a recommendation that was in a Southwest Audit Partnership report of increasing visibility on fraud management.

The committee was made aware that as of the progress made last year all the actions that were outstanding had mainly been completed. The areas outstanding were to provide more focused training for high-risk areas above and beyond the E learning that was currently available.

SWAP had previously carried out a baseline report on fraud management arrangements, which showed at the first review that although there were mechanisms and processes in place, these were not fully completed or embedded. 25 themes showed as amber out of 27. A follow-up review was taken in December 2022 which showed a significant improvement of 16 themes showing as green. The 11 amber areas form part of improvement measures for this year and involved improving communication channels.

The 2019 SWAP report noted the need for a member champion on fraud prevention, and the report proposed that this role transfers to the chair of the Audit and Governance Committee which was supported. Out of the 7 issues reported for the fraud and whistleblowing activities there was 1 case still under investigation and the other were not upheld.

Cllr Trite commented on the background papers under the section, anti-fraud, bribery, and corruption strategy, ‘we operate a zero-tolerance culture of fraud corruption’. He added that it should be corrected to ‘we operate a zero-tolerance policy towards fraud and corruption and requested that this should be checked’.

The term whistleblowing was discussed, and the definition will be considered for the next report.

Decision

The report was noted.

To receive a verbal update from Jonathan Mair, Director of Legal and Democratic.

The monitoring officer updated the committee on the consequential changes to the constitution.

Article 6.13 of the constitution required the executive leader to maintain an up-to-date list of the responsibilities of others that are exercising executive powers on his behalf. This list can be found in the annex to article 6 of the Constitution and will be updated to reflect the reshuffle that the leader recently made to the cabinet and to reflect the changes to portfolio holders’ positions.

Under the Local Government Act 2000 the Leader appoints members of the cabinet and designates their portfolios. The monitoring Officer reported on a change to the Constitution to clarify that in the event of a portfolio holder being absent then the Leader of the council can exercise the powers of that portfolio holder. 

Noted.

To consider the work programme for the Committee.

To add the 2021/21-2022 accounts and an update on the external audit of accounts to the July and September Work Programme. 

To consider any items of business which the Chairman has had prior notification and considers to be urgent pursuant to section 100B (4) b) of the Local Government Act 1972. The reason for the urgency shall be recorded in the minutes.

There were no urgent items.

To move the exclusion of the press and the public for the following item in view of the likely disclosure of exempt information within the meaning of paragraph 3 of schedule 12 A to the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended).

The public and the press will be asked to leave the meeting whilst the item of business is considered.

There is no exempt business.

There was no exempt business.