Archived decisions
Contact: Gary Smith, ext 7691 Email: [email protected]
1 Background
1.1 Each year the District Auditor compiles an Annual Audit and Inspection Letter to Members which summarises the conclusions and significant issues arising from the Audit Commission's audit and inspection of the Council. This is presented to Cabinet each January.
1.2 It is considered useful to have the Council's response at the same time. This paper highlights the main points from the 2005 letter and identifies areas for action. It is important to ensure audit recommendations are followed up as this forms an essential part of CPA, in terms of responding to external feedback and evaluation.
2 Auditors recommendations
2.1 The District Auditor recommended ten specific actions for the Council to address:
1. Seeking to understand high cost areas through better integrated cost and performance information and a more consistent approach to reviewing value for money.
2. Making greater use of activity indicators that are linked to spend, to support the budget monitoring process.
3. Completing the implementation of the new asset register and ensuring it is maintained up to date thereafter.
4. Adopting a formal plan to deal with the backlog of building maintenance.
5. Ensuring that all property assets have been re-valued within the preceding five years, by the end of 2005/06.
6. Considering enhancing the role and independence of the Governance Committee.
7. Integrating partnership arrangements into the corporate planning and governance frameworks.
8. Ensuring that processes for managing control and holding accounts are tightened.
9. Considering a higher profile approach to promoting an anti-fraud culture.
10. Keeping under review the appropriateness of the 40 year pension fund recovery period for admitted bodies.
2.2 While Cabinet will continue to receive separate reports on these areas, this paper provides an overview bringing all the relevant areas of activity together in response to the Audit Commission's recommendations. Appendix one lists the specific actions, lead officer and timescales.
3 Summary
3.1 Formally responding to audit and inspection recommendations is an important part of good management. Given all services scored three of four out of a possible four there are no service specific recommendations. Instead the recommendations mostly concern specialist corporate issues for which a schedule of actions (appendix one) has been compiled.
3.2 However, it is also important to note the implicit areas for action which feature within the body of the audit letter in order to achieve continual improvement and increase the direction of travel judgement as well as maintain and improve service block scores. Chief Officers and departmental performance leads should consider the auditors' observations as part of their general planning and reporting cycle. When the direction of travel self-assessment is prepared for submission to the Audit Commission, in September 2006, it will be necessary for progress against these observations to be included.
Recommendations
1 That Cabinet welcomes the comments by the District Auditor and approves the approach laid out in appendix one as the County Council's formal response to the Annual Audit and Inspection Letter.
2 That Cabinet ask departments, as part of their corporate submissions to the direction of travel self-assessment 2006, to include progress against the auditor's observations contained within the body of the audit letter.
Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background documents
The following documents discuss facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and have been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.
NB: the list excludes:
1. Published works
2. Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act
Documents: none
Appendix one - 2005 Annual Audit & Inspection Letter response
Recommendation |
Actions |
Lead officer |
Target date |
Progress |
1. Seeking to understand high cost areas through better integrated cost and performance information and a more consistent approach to reviewing value for money. |
a. Incorporate value for money into Integrated Planning. b. Integrated Planning and Reporting Steering Group to consider how to develop Integrated Reporting to enable performance and cost comparison. c. Hold review facilitators workshop to reaffirm review principles and ensure value for money considered. d. Update the online review guidance to incorporate value for money as part of the Performance Management Framework development (PMF). e. Encourage greater benchmarking of services cost and performance through activily engagin with Executive Members and seniro officers in performance management. |
a. Sue Sylvester b. Sue Sylvester c. Jenny Heath d. Jenny Heath e. Jenny Heath |
a.April 2006 b.December 2006 c.November 2005 d.March 2006 e.March 2006 |
a. Value for money added to 2006/07 Service Planning templates. b. c. Workshop held 3 November 2005 and ongoing liaisons established to maintain approach. d. Incorporated within PMF project plan. e. Programme of meetings/briefings compiled to engage and raise the awareness of performance management issues with Executive Members and senior officers - see `Improving the Council's Direction of Travel' report to Cabinet 23 January 2006. |
2. Making greater use of activity indicators that are linked to spend, to support the budget monitoring process. |
a. Conduct a mapping exercise to gain a better understanding between performance results and finacial investment. |
a. Meriel Cowan |
a.June 2006 |
a. Around a dozen PIs have been looked into on a pilot basis before rolling out wider. |
3. Completing the implementation of the new asset register and ensuring it is maintained up to date thereafter. |
a.Resolve the technicial issues with the new SAP module and complete implementation of the new asset register - which will allow the register to be updated during the year. b.Property and land form the majority of the asset register and, after the backlog is cleared (see recommendation 5), Estates will ensure assets details are kept up to date (subject to the technical issues above being resolved). |
a. Peter Vaughan b. Gary Carroll |
a.28 February 2006 b. 31 March 2006 |
a. External consultants have been brought in to resolve the techincial difficulities. b. |
4. Adopting a formal plan to deal with the backlog of building maintenance. |
a. Conduct a strategic property review. b. Exploit external funding opportunities. c. None. |
a. Ian Parker b. Mike Fitch c. Karen Murray |
a. April 2007 b.December 2006 c.N/a |
a. This will be broad review but is expected to cover condition issues. b. New Deal for Schools funding has been received and a bid has recently been submitted to the DfES for further support for repairs to the Council's SCOLA schools. c. It should be noted that the Council already has a plan called the Strategy for the Built Estate which is the overarching strategy that informs planned maintenance activities. Routine plans are then regularly reported to Members through the Buildings Land and Procurement Panel. |
5. Ensuring that all property assets have been re-valued within the preceding five years, by the end of 2005/06. |
a. Re-value any property assets that have not been re-valued in the preceding five years. Thereafter Estates will allocate resources to keep the register up to date to ensure assets are re-valued and updated onto the asset register every five years by 31 March in each year. |
a. Gary Carroll |
a.31 March 2006 |
a. |
6. Considering enhancing the role and independence of the Governance Committee. |
a. None |
a.Jeff Pattison |
a.January 2006 |
a.The Chief Executive, Monitoring Officer and Chief Internal Auditor accept the principles of the CIPFA guidance and believe the Council's Governance Committee is effective and complies with its intended outcomes. However, it is felt the guidance becomes restrictive by specifying the precise nature of the committee. In Hampshire the chairmanship and general make-up of the committee, which includes the minority group leaders, adds credibility and weight to the deliberations allowing more effective challenge which is directly responded to by those with executive responsibility. This ensures robust governance arrangements with timely problem resolution. |
7. Integrating partnership arrangements into the corporate planning and governance frameworks. |
a. Develop online corporate partnership guidance. b. Develop a corporate partnership policy, to include formal partnership requirements (eg terms of reference) as well as performance monitoring and governance arrangements. |
a. Julia Simpson b. Paddy Hillary |
a. April 2006 b. April 2006 |
a. An online partnership portal has been drafted which brings together and orders the vast partnership guidance. b. ? |
8. Ensuring that processes for managing control and holding accounts are tightened. |
a. Review the processes for managing control and holding accounts. |
a.Anne Hibbert |
a.31 March 2006 |
a.These are being reviewed and will be subject to managerial and internal audit review before the preparation of the 2005/06 accounts. |
9. Considering a higher profile approach to promoting an anti-fraud culture. |
a. Raise the issue with the Governance Committee again in light of the government's delay in introducing the expected new Code of Conduct, with recommendations for action to raise awareness of existing policies within the Anti-fraud Strategy. |
a.Ejner Knudsen |
a.June 2006 |
a. |
10. Keeping under review the appropriateness of the 40 year pension fund recovery period for admitted bodies. |
a. Cover as part of the actuarial advice in the next valuation. |
a.Dave Wilson |
a.31 March 2007 |
a. |
Areas for improvement noted or implied in the body of the audit letter (mostly within the direction of travel section) |
a.Forward Annual Audit & Inspection Letter to Chief Officers and departmental performance leads to note auditor observations and for consideration as part of departmental planning and monitoring. b.Performance leads to include progress against auditor observations as part of the departments direction of travel self-assessment corporate submission. |
a.Gary Smith b.Departmental performance leads |
a.January 2006 b.September 2006 |
a. b. |