Agenda item

To review the Committee’s recommendations tracker.

Tony Elias joined the meeting.

Declarations of interest:

None.

Officers:

Cath Edwards, Risk & Governance Manager

Kevin Kilburn, Deputy Chief Finance Officer

Sue Lewry-Jones, Chief Internal Auditor

Helen Rankin, Regulatory Committee Manager

Key points raised during the discussion:

1.     In relation to A14/12 (internal audit reports on the SNet), the Regulatory Committee Manager advised that all Internal Audit reports published in the period May 2012 – present had been uploaded into an intranet library.  The Chief Internal Auditor would send out a link to all Members after the meeting.

2.     In relation to A20/12 (damage to county property recovery rates), the Chairman advised that he would ask the Projects and Contracts Group Manager to attend the next meeting. 

3.     In relation to A38/12 (Creditor balance), the Deputy Chief Finance Officer provided an update.  He reported that the action related to an uncorrected non-material error identified by the eternal auditor.  The Finance service had been investigating this since September 2012 and found that £1.7m (of the reported £9.3m balance) had subsequently been paid.  The investigation had been broken down into vendor balances of over £50k, those worth £25k-50k, and under £25k.  The higher balances had been the focus of the initial stages of the investigation, and good progress had been made so far.  The problem had occurred because of a difference between amounts recorded on purchase orders and actual goods received.  It was noted that there had also been cases where invoices had not been received or where use of an alternative payment method had not been advised to Accounts Payable.  The Deputy Chief Finance Officer explained that the whole end-to-end purchasing-to-pay process was being reviewed.  He clarified that no balances (which were favourable) had been written back yet, as the investigation was not complete and officers were keen to avoid writing back any balances that could be a proper liability.  In terms of timescales, it was reported that some of the work, particularly on the smaller balances, was likely to continue after the end of this financial year.  It was reported that when the total amount was confirmed, it would be written back centrally so that Cabinet could decide what to do with it.  The Deputy Chief Finance Officer advised that he would speak to the external auditor about the next steps, but did not anticipate that reallocating the expenditure by expense category to services in the financial accounts would be a time consuming task.

4.     Members expressed concern that items were being marked as goods receipted, without the Council ever receiving the goods.  The Deputy Chief Finance Officer explained that necessary controls were in place through budget monitoring.    The Chief Internal Auditor confirmed that audits of budgetary control, accounts payable and the General Ledger were currently underway 

5.     In relation to A45/12 (schools early closure of accounts), the Deputy Chief Finance Officer reported that major problems were not anticipated this year as Easter fell earlier than previous years.  In addition, Babcock 4S were sending out additional information to schools, a new SAP module had been implemented for capital and quarterly closing was helping to ensure that there should not be any issues with early close because of schools.  The Audit Manager (Grant Thornton) reported that the Finance Manager (Assets and Accounting) had been present at a recent Grant Thornton session on account closing where Oldham Council had shared information about successful accounts closing with relation to schools.

6.     In relation to A53/12 (select committee review of Internal Audit reports), the Committee agreed the proposed wording of a recommendation to select committee chairmen setting out the process for handling Internal Audit reports.

7.     In relation to A58/12 (Environment and Infrastructure risk register), the Risk & Governance Manager advised that she had not yet received an updated version of the register.  The Chairman agreed to write to the relevant Portfolio Holder again.

8.     In relation to A59/12 (energy purchasing contract), the Chairman confirmed that a letter had been drafted, signed by the Leader and sent to the Leader of the local authority in question.

9.     It was noted that A1/13 would be updated to reflect the amended minutes, agreed at Item 2.

10.  Before concluding the item, Members agreed that it would be helpful to ensure that the recommendations tracker was fully up-to-date, ahead of the forthcoming elections, which could see a change in Committee membership.

Actions/Further information to be provided:

The recommendations tracker to be updated to reflect the discussion, as noted above.

RESOLVED:

The recommendations tracker was noted and the Committee agreed to remove pages 37 – 39 of the tracker, as the actions were completed.

Committee Next Steps:

The Chairman agreed to write to:

·        The Portfolio Holder for Environment & Transport about the Environment & Infrastructure Strategic Risk Register

·        Select Committee chairmen, with reference to the select committee process for handling Internal Audit reports

·        The Highways Department, with regard to A20/12