To receive Report No. 68/2019 from the Head of Internal Audit.

Report No. 68/2019 was received from the Head of Internal Audit, the purpose of which was to update Members on the progress made in delivering the 2018/19 Annual Audit Plan and outcomes from audit assignments completed since the last Committee meeting.

Mr Croote (Audit Manager - LGSS) introduced the report and provided a brief summary of the report.

During discussion the following points were noted:

i)      The Specialist Resources in Planning audit had been postponed until the next municipal year in order to accommodate further work on issues in Waste Management following consultation with the Chairman;

ii)     The report on Contract Procedure Rules Compliance (Appendix F) had been included at the request of the Chairman and members of the panel were invited to comment on this report;

iii)   It was confirmed that Karen Kibblewhite (Head of Commissioning) would be speaking to Heads of Service and Departmental Management Teams to inform them about changes to the Contract Procedure Rules and provide guidance on application and contract monitoring;

iv)   Mr Nix (Head of IT) had requested that the audit recommendation on IT Assets be kept open so that further work could be completed.  Issues identified were less about the loss of assets, but more in relation to identifying which member of staff was holding a particular asset.  This was particularly problematic when a member of staff left and IT equipment was passed to the replacement member of staff without notification to IT to allow for records to be updated;

v)    Mr Brown, Leader and Portfolio holder for Planning, Environment, Property and Finance updated the panel in relation to the overdue Bond for the Waste Management Contract.  Biffa had offered to provide a Performance Guarantee, which was not in accordance with the contract and further legal advice was being sought.  Mr Brown would be looking for an update and an action plan in relation to this issue from the service area;

vi)   Mr Brown was satisfied that the process for reconciliation of invoices in relation to the waste management contract had been improved and formalised;

vii)  Mr Della Rocca clarified that although the audit on Compliance with Contract Procedure Rules had identified that some contracts had not been recorded on the contracts register for publication in accordance with the Transparency Code, there was no suggestion that proper procedures had not been following in relation to those contracts. Mr Della Rocca highlighted that the Transparency Code requirements had significantly increased over time and that the Council was doing its best to comply with no additional resource.  Mr Croote confirmed that it was not unusual to see some discrepancies on Local Authority Transparency Code publication of contracts registers;

viii)Miss Waller commented that recent leadership recruitment in the Places Directorate should improve the reporting in that area as most of the contracts that had not been entered on the register were from that iDrectorate; and

ix)   Miss Waller noted that a significant amount of work had gone into the review of the Contract Procedure Rules by both Members and Officers in order to simplify and clarify procedures. She hoped to see the procedures being implemented to improve compliance in this area.

RESOLVED

The Committee NOTED the Internal Audit update report.