Audit Committee - Tuesday 11 March 2025, 7:30pm - Wandsworth Council Webcasting

Audit Committee
Tuesday, 11th March 2025 at 7:30pm 

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  1. Webcast Finished

Welcome to this committee. My name is Councillor Denise Poole, Chair of the Audit Committee.
Members of the committee, I will now call your names. Please switch on your microphone
to confirm your attendance.
Councillor Quitchild.
Present.
Councillor Caddy.
Present.
Councillor Hedges. Present.
Councillor Lawless. Present.
We also have present our independent member, Ilver Fotena -Kana.
Present. I would like us to note that Vanessa has
stepped down as the independent chair. I just wanted to thank Vanessa for her service
to this committee and wish her all the best. So moving on to agenda item number one, declarations

2 Declarations of Interests

of interest. Are there any declarations of either pecuniary, other registable or non -registable
interests? No? Okay.
Just going back to the independent member. So if Vanessa is no longer with us, will we
be recruiting for another because I think the committee requires two. That was all.
And what's the time scale? There isn't a time scale, but something it
was going to pick up in any other business. But there isn't, so I don't need to pick it
up now. So there isn't one at the moment, but it will be shared with the committee members.
Item number 2, the minutes from the 7th of November, 2024.

1 Minutes - 7 November 2024

Just wanted to know if members agree that this is a correct record of that meeting.
Thank you.
I just wanted to mention to members as well that we're going to, we'd like to reorder
the agenda to take EY first.
So item number seven we'll be taking first.

7 Update on the 2022-23 External Audit, and 2023-24 Accounts and the report of the External Auditor (Paper No. 25-111)

Okay, let's move on to item seven.
What I failed to say, we do have members or officers here who will introduce themselves
when they decide to speak, I'm not having a great day today.
Item 7. Thank you, Chair. Alicia Ato, Chief Accountant.
This paper provides an update of the external audits of the accounts for 22, 23 and 23,
24 financial years. Starting with the 22, 23 accounts, as circulated for information
to committee members in December 2024. This was signed off as planned in good
time ahead of the backstop date of the 13th of December. Moving to the 23 -24
accounts, these were more recently signed off ahead of the second backstop date
which was the 28th of February and nothing has changed in terms of the
expected opinion since the November committee. The final audit results report
was circulated at the time in February,
but it is also included for completion within these papers
as well.
In relation to the expected disclaimed opinion,
which have been given for the accounts,
some statistics have recently been released,
which we thought would be useful to note.
So for 22 -23, there were 158 disclaimed opinions in England.
For 23 -24 this figure was 148.
These figures are higher than the full stroke final opinions nationally, so the Council
is in the majority of authorities affected by the approach to issue disclaimed opinions
to move through the backstop dates with signed off accounts.
In conclusion, the paper also discusses external audit fees.
and I believe Janet Dawson, Adrian Barmer were planning to join remotely from EY who can take further questions.
Thank you. Are there any questions from committee members?
Do we have EY on the line? We do. Okay, brilliant.
I've got a few I guess, sorry, hi good evening. I guess the first one is just on the fees
there's an additional 18 ,000 for the value for money commentary. I just wondered was
that because there was a problem with the value for money commentary or was that always
included is that something new why isn't that included in the scale fee and then
I guess as a kind of I can maybe go through some more detailed questions in
a minute but as an overall sort of comment what are other councils other
audit committees and what can we do to sort of help satisfy ourselves as to the
the accuracy of the accounts given that we've got an opinion which is not
straightforward that we've got disclaimer. I guess it's my overall question.
Can you hear me? Yes. Yes, I'm seeing a thumbs up. Yes. Good. Super. Thank you. Janet Dawson
here. Audit partner from EY and I'm joined by Adrian Barmah, the Senior Manager on the audit as well.
Thank you for the two questions so far. So on the fee of 18 ,000 that is an element of the fee for
22 -23. PSAA set the fees. They're in an unprecedented situation where they had a scale
fee for the audit, which would include both the financial statements audit and the value
for money work. Clearly, because we have done a different scope of work for 22, 23, which
is to move to disclaimed opinion, there's a debate within the system as to what the
appropriate fee should be for that. So what they've been able to do is look at the work
that we have done as part of the VFM commentary and determine a fee associated with that element
of the work. What they haven't yet done is determined fees for
disclaimed financial statements opinions.
So it's not new or additional.
It's part of the ultimate out, the ultimate total audit fee,
which will differ from the scale fee that they had originally
set 18 months prior.
We unfortunately, I can't give you any more information than
we've told them how much it cost us to do that work.
and they are now in the process of determining the fee associated with that
as they are for all those other disclaimed opinions.
So that's the fee point.
Thanks. Can I just very quickly come back and just clarify something on that.
So is that 18 ,000 value for money commentary,
I guess what I'm trying to understand or get at,
given that there's an issue with the value for money commentary,
is that because we haven't provided something?
Is it that high because of something that we have or haven't done?
is there some or is it is that just the standard sort of fee scale fee you're shaking your head
it's a fairly standard scale fee um councilor caddy for the scope of work that we're required
to do under the code of audit practice though there were no uh we we looked closely spent
some time looking at the risk of significant weakness around the arrangements for um your
joint venture but found no exceptions to that um so it reflects the amount of work we need to do
across the value for money arrangements and the work we did in that particular area for
2022 -23.
Councillor Hedges.
Thank you very much.
Just wondered in terms of the executive summary, there are a number of misstatements that were
corrected.
And I just wanted to make sure that one, the council hasn't been disadvantaged in any way.
and how much comfort do you have that there are not as many,
there are not more mistakes throughout the document?
Thank you.
Just because there were quite a few large ones.
So thank you for the question.
And also this links to Councillor Caddy's second part
of her question around, you know,
how satisfied can you be about the accuracy of the accounts?
What we've done is set out in appendix A,
the summary of assurance that we were able to gain.
So we try to break that down over the different areas
of the significant counts within your statement of accounts,
your financial statements,
and to describe the amount of work
that we have been able to do
and the extent of assurance that that then gives us
over the numbers.
So you'll be able to see that it's not,
that's not a reporting requirement on auditors,
but we felt it would be helpful for you
to understand how we then move forward and build back assurance over the coming couple of years.
So you'll be able to, I think, draw an inference from that as to where we have substantial assurance,
we've been able to complete all of our procedures, and where we've got partial or limited or no
assurance because of the nature of the work that we've been able to do or not. And that will give
an indication of where there may be other issues. What we have done is report to you
all those errors that we have identified above our reporting threshold so that you can see
what has been adjusted and what has not been adjusted.
Councillor Quiizzchor. Thank you. This might be a question for officers
as well as for you is obviously this is we've seen an earlier version of this before. Could
you highlight any issues that have in the final version that have we haven't already
seen at this committee? Is there anything we should be specifically looking for?
I may hand over to Adrian because he was able to attend your November meeting. I was unfortunately
not able to be there. There's nothing significant that comes to mind. I think at that point
we were reporting to you that we had an issue on council dwellings, that we had not yet
been able to carry out our work on group accounts and that remains the case. I'm not sure whether
there are any of the specific errors that we identified that weren't reported to that
previous committee. I know that we didn't report to you at that point around pension liability on
London pension authority, that we were unable to get assurance over that due to the triennial
valuation that had taken place in 22 -23. But other than that, I'm not aware of any other
significant areas. Adrian, do you want to come in? No, no, I think that's consistent, Janet. So
I think the areas we were still working on in November, the areas that actually
flow through into the summary of assurances where we actually didn't have
assurance in the end so I think most of the other areas that we reported in
November the work on the audit was substantially well progressed and
actually the committee was kind of informed of kind of the key issues
coming out from the audit so I think as Janet said they're probably the key
issues was around council dwellings group and also just the pensions point.
Councillor Cavi. Thank you very much, Chair. Just on page
89 of our pack, which I think is page 11 of your pack, under fraud risk, there's a comment
on risk of fraud in revenue and expenditure recognition through the inappropriate capitalisation
of revenue expenditure. But sort of reading the narrative, why is that a sort of particular
of fraud risk rather than just a misstatement risk.
I just wondered if there was a bit more background
behind that.
Well, perhaps if I start,
Nadrien can come in on the specifics there.
So across all audits, we would set a risk of fraud
in revenue and expenditure recognition.
And within local government,
the main area where that can be manipulated
is where you inappropriately capitalized revenue expenditure.
So we would do testing in that area
to ensure that revenue expenditure isn't being put on the balance sheet and
therefore taken off your bottom line. So what we've identified in our testing is
a number of different misstatements in there. Adrian do you want to just provide
a little bit more information on those?
I'll mute.
Yes, so the errors were reported in there were really,
none of them were indicative of any type of fraud
and there were really just some inconsistencies
within the treatment of reficas itself.
But Janet said it is a consistent approach
where we would have a higher risk
around reficas transactions.
We test them at a substantially high level
to be able to give us an assurance
to make sure that everything is correctly classified.
And as I say, there was nothing indicative of any fraud.
It was mainly just around some of the actual treatment
of the reficas expenditure itself.
Thank you very much.
And then just one more was on the risk
of significant weakness, which was identified
in the value for money arrangements.
Page one.
It's page 107, but it's referred to throughout the pack.
I guess, is it possible to just get a bit more information?
what is the very sort of, what is the specific risk there?
And what should we have done differently?
What systems could we or should we have had in place
to avoid this?
And other group accounts,
because I know the group accounts weren't actually late
last time we met.
Are they now late and missing?
And I just wondered, it's probably a question for officers
rather than for EY, but I just wondered
if they were on their way or what the problem was.
So from the value for money arrangements work that we do, we're required to look at, as
I say, the arrangements in place to ensure that you have appropriate governance over
that your main decisions, you're using appropriate information and that you are looking at your
financial position as one particular criteria that we need to focus on. So when we were
setting the plan and discussing with the Section 151 officer,
Fenella Mary, and her team about the key risks within the business.
We were very aware that the organization was considering the future of the joint
venture, how it would take that forward within the context of those risks in
terms of appropriate governance arrangements, managing any financial risk
and using information appropriately.
Now, from our perspective, that was a significant issue that the organization was dealing with throughout the year.
And so we raised it as a risk of significant weakness to say there's a risk that you may not put appropriate arrangements in place.
So let us work with you to understand how your governance is working across that, what information you're using,
what support you're getting from advisors,
and how are you managing the risk to the business,
whether it's financial, reputational, or operational.
So we have looked through at a reasonably high level
what those arrangements have been,
how the organization has responded to that risk.
And we were satisfied that the organization wasn't leaving
itself exposed to a significant weakness in any
of those three domains for this year.
It's an area, I know there's significant work still ongoing
in terms of how the organization then moves forward
with the program of work that was being handled
by the joint venture.
And so it's an area that we'll continue to look at
and consider through 24, 25 and beyond.
I hope that helps.
Thank you very much.
To be perfectly honest, it doesn't really.
Because I'm interested to know,
from reading this, it sort of implies
that something has gone wrong
or something hasn't been available,
something hasn't been made available,
or it hasn't been managed in a way
that's sort of appropriate to minimize the significant risk
which you clearly think exists.
And your explanation sort of hasn't explained
what we should have done differently,
or would you have not expected anything
to be done differently?
is the mere existence of a significant risk in and of itself.
I'm just wondering if one of the officers wants to come in.
Can I just explain the value for money arrangements work first?
Because I understand your question,
which is, should we have done something different,
are we exposed to a risk?
Our responsibility is to look across those arrangements,
identify where there may be a risk
and consider whether the arrangements are sufficient to manage the risk.
So I'm not in a position to say, could you have avoided it in the first place?
I'm looking at now that you have this business risk, what have you done to manage that?
And I was satisfied that there were sufficient arrangements in place to do so.
But let me hand over to the officers.
Thank you, Chair.
Catherine Burson, Director of Financial Management.
Hopefully what Janet just mentioned then was more helpful in that it's flagged as a risk
because it's there, exactly that, Councillor Caddy, and EY are satisfied that they – we've
been in dialogue with them about our approach and about the future arrangements, and as
you said, that's being reported to Housing Committee for the Future building arrangements
that were previously to be delivered by the JV.
In terms of the group accounts, we did provide the accounts to EY, but because of the backstop
date, the full group accounts audit has not been completed.
So it's not that there's any issue with it, it's just that the time because of that backstop
date, hopefully that helps.
That's really helpful, thank you.
Members?
Ms. Ilver.
Hello.
So on the Appendix A, page 130,
which you mentioned before,
you have indicated if you've got
like substantial partial, no assurance,
and you have mentioned that you are building a plan
for 2425 to regain assurance.
So will the 2425, on your opinion, be clean now?
or do you expect a disclaimer again?
So the 24 -25 opinion is unlikely to be clean
because of the nature of disclaimed ordered opinions.
So where you have no assurance over your opening balances
in the 23 -24 accounts,
then clearly those comparatives will move forward.
So we'll be looking at transactions in year for 24, 25, some of which will be,
will have comparatives from this year where we were unable to provide full assurance.
So it is unlikely, if you're used to corporate accounts where they're disclaimed,
you would expect a three -year cycle to be able to move from disclaimed accounts to clean accounts.
The issue that we have, Ilver, is also that there is as yet no guidance available in the system
for where the focus needs to be by auditors to rebuild that assurance.
So we are working really closely with the likes of MHCLG, the NAO who set the code,
and the FRC who regulate us as auditors to understand whether they have an expected approach
and are going to provide guidance for local government auditors to build that assurance
back consistently. Otherwise, we as a firm will take a view on how we best do that. So
we are building that plan at the moment and we're seeking guidance from the system and
we'll be able to give you more information about how that will build back or how we anticipate
that will build back over the next couple of years in our audit plan for 24 -25.
Okay, so there will be probably some areas where you will just highlight that you were
expressing like a disclaimer because you cannot get, yeah?
So will that be mentioned in the opinion?
So you may have a disclaimed opinion again, or you may have, and as we move through, you
would expect to move to a limitation of scope where certain areas, a few areas are, there
hasn't been sufficient assurance, and then you would move on to a clean opinion ultimately.
But it will take a number of years to move to that position.
Okay.
And from the areas that you have highlighted, which one is the riskiest one that we should
be paying attention until we get full assurance?
Great question.
The one that is most difficult to build back is assurance over reserves, and that is where
the main focus of attention has been across local government,
because when you haven't got the detail of what's
been going through those reserves in previous years
and assurance over those, you need
to work backwards to gain that.
So that's the most difficult area to build back.
I think there isn't any other aspect of it
that I think is more or less risky.
I think that's just the complex area to gain assurance.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
Just are members happy to agree the recommendations?
There's three recommendations.
Yep, great.
Sorry.

3 Housing Ombudsman Complaint (Paper No. 25-110)

Moving on to agenda item 3, housing ombudsman complaint, paper number 25 to 110, pages 3
to 14.
Are there any questions from the, well, I've got to wait for you to, somebody's talk.
Andrew just to introduce us, if you don't mind.
Thank you, Chair.
I'll give a brief overview.
It's quite a straightforward or short report.
So essentially the audit team completed a piece of work following a finding by the housing
ombudsman in relation to some properties in the All Saints' estate where there had been
water ingress and the ombudsman was unsatisfied with the way that the Councillor's landlord
had dealt with the complaint itself from the member of the public and the repairs that
needed being completed as well.
The Ombudsman made a number of orders for the Council to comply with, one of those being
that an independent review was completed and reported to a governing body or equivalent
within the Council so that there could be scrutiny around recommendations that were
being made and the implementation of those recommendations over a period of time.
So the internal audit team was asked and accepted the role of completing the independent review
Because the Audit Committee is well placed to receive the recommendations from us and
then those recommendations will be followed up as part of the usual audit reporting process
where we come back to Audit Committee with updates on recommendations.
The work that we completed found that there were two areas where work was still outstanding
from the housing team and those were the recommendations that were in the report that's the appendix
A to this.
I think it's fairly straightforward.
So we're asking the committee to note the report itself
and to note the fact that we will be bringing
the recommendations back to you to determine
once they've been, or to acknowledge
once they've been completed in full.
The first follow -up will be completed in six months
from the point where the work was completed.
So that will mean that for us, we'll be doing it in May.
So we'll bring our first report back
to the June, straight July audit committee meeting
with an update on the recommendations.
and we have Tom Cawley with us from Housing to answer any questions if you have any specifics.
So Tom was involved in dealing with the Ombudsman complaint and overseeing the work that's been completed to date.
Thank you.
Is Tom here just to answer some questions or...
I am. Sorry I'm on my...
Okay, can we see if you've got any questions?
Hi, Mr. Crawley. I don't know if you can just, to start with, just give us a really quick rundown just of broadly what the problem was and how the problem arose,
because it's not sort of clear from the paper where the sort of breakdown in communication, you know, what happened, because obviously it was partly to do with the co -op as well.
So if you get to understand sort of practically how it worked, how it broke down, what the
problem was, and then just broadly what we need to do to change to fix it.
Sure.
So the problems were leaks from the roof of the sort of main block on All Saints Cooperative
into the leaseholders property.
They reported first I think in, well, they reported in 2018 -19 that we'd undertaken repairs
to resolve them.
then reported again in 2020 and we undertook further repairs. Now at that time there was
a survey undertaken and the recommendation was that we should start to think about programming
it in for roof renewal and that didn't happen at that point when it should have done. There
was quite a lot of back and forth between the area housing team and the cooperative
where there was discussion about, you know, what further works might be required to resolve
the brief leaks fully, but without really doing the referral that needed to be done to
recommend it for full roof renewal by a major works team. And that took probably another two
years before that referral then actually happened. And that's really the main failure. It's that
liaison between the cooperative and the area team about kind of the expertise and responsibility for
making that that referral. And in the meantime, the leaseholder was suffering from sort of
intermittent water ingress. And we were undertaking a rather cooperative undertaking temporary
repairs, but they weren't being successful because ultimately, the roof had come to the
end of its useful life and needed to be renewed. And another factor was that while those issues
were ongoing, the co -op wasn't effectively updating the leaseholder in terms of what
was happening, what the delays were and why. The third main point which the
Ombudsman picked up on was in relation to the stage one complaint that the
leaseholder made to the cooperative and there was a delay in terms of the
cooperative responding to that. So in terms of the actions that we've taken to
address the issue, the main one was probably the introducing some
training to the co -ops which I undertook with all of them in October, not just all
but all of the 10 cooperatives that we look after
in relation to complaint handling
and what to do in that situation should it arise again.
There have also been some staff changes
within the area housing team,
which were sort of part of the reason
why there was the poor sort of level of assistance
from that team at that time.
So those have been addressed.
I've taken the sort of recommendations to the co -op forum,
presented it to the co -op and was there again last night discussing it with them.
Another change which will be adopted across all of our housing stock, which is we were
planning to do anyway, but I think it's been hastened really by this report, was purchasing
something called NEC Go Mobile. So NEC is the housing management system we use to raise
repair orders. And obviously it contains a huge amount of data on our assets, so the
quality of our stock. And what that NEC Go Marlboro allows to do is to have sort of scheduled
annual inspections of all our roofs across all our housing stock and then gathering data
on the condition of those roofs, which will then feed into a kind of more data -driven
approach to planning in major works such as roof renewal. So that's been purchased and
just in the process of working out the kind of process for how that can be implemented.
And just to sort of sum up, the compensation has been offered to all of the leaseholders
that's been affected.
Other than the leaseholder affected by the report, one has accepted the compensation
and the other three are kind of waiting to see whether they would decide whether to accept
it or not.
I think they want to wait for the roofing to actually take place before they decide
whether to accept the offer or not. And the roof renewal is expected to start in the summer
at the moment. Thank you very much. Just a very quick follow -up. Do we expect that the
changes that are going to be made will essentially eliminate the risk of this happening again,
or is part of the problem the fact that it involves a co -op and we aren't able to manage
the staff of the car in the same way that we would manage our own staff and we don't
have the same controls. And I guess my question is, has the Ombudsman kind of judged us on
that? And do we need to think of a way of kind of working around that to be able to
get some reassurance that our residents are going to get the correct treatment? Or is
it much more our processes rather than the co -op issues?
I think it's a bit of both. I think it's a fairly unique situation where the co -op and
the sort of housing department were at fault.
We have sort of made more robust our monitoring
of the cooperatives over the last year or so,
largely in response to kind of new health
and safety legislation,
but also to cover eventualities such as this.
So that in itself will help.
And then as I said, I think the NAC going mobile
sort of app and the process that will go with that
in terms of roof inspections
should eliminate the chances of this happening again.
Because in the past, we've been reliant on officers
who raise the orders for roof repairs,
essentially noticing the fact that they're raising lots of orders to address a roof,
a particular roof, and then realizing that it should be renewed relatively soon,
and then programming in, whereas this new kind of processing system
should allow us to make sure that we're much more kind of,
it's much easier to monitor that process because we know that every single roof
would be inspected every year and we can see what the outcome of that inspection
was and then what the, you know, what was done in response to
that, whether it was a referral or whether it was kind of noted that the
roof has a few more years left in its life.
Just before I hand over to you, I've just got one question myself, just around
the report itself, I think it was being shared with the director's board
and also you mentioned that it was shared with the co -op forum. Was there any sort of feedback
or anything there at those once that was sent through to those individuals? No, I think the
co -op, it was a useful exercise obviously to share it with the co -op forum because all of the other
co -ops could see it and learn from it as well and as the report indicates one of the things that
we've done is to add a kind of learning from complaints agenda item to the co -op forum
So that, you know, not just this particular complaint,
but any other complaints that we have,
and there's learning from it, we share with them,
and vice versa as well, if there's complaints
that they're dealing with, and there's issues
that are picked up, that we can learn
from what we're doing that.
So, you know, one of the outcomes, I suppose,
has been a much kind of closer relationship
with the COBs in terms of information sharing and learning.
Thank you, Councillor, sorry, Councillor Hedges.
Thank you, Chair.
Yes, no, this sounds quite, we had a similar issue.
You'll remember Mr. Crawley and Ballum, Abbott House,
where we had water ingress and one of the residents
had complained and I actually went into the flat
and I was really horrified with the damp
and the damage that that could do to the residents.
So I mean, have we considered in this situation
the health situation of the residents?
Because I mean, this has been going on for a long time.
So presumably the housing ombudsman picked up on that.
Because obviously damp has been an issue
and there was something in the press
not so long ago about that.
So I wondered whether there's heightened sensitivity
around this, hence the outcome of this case.
Thank you.
I get that, that probably is a factor.
I think the housing ombudsman generally
has been much more proactive in their approach
to examining complaints and their findings.
And certainly there's always a few
that relate to issues of damp and mould. And as a result, we've changed our approach.
We inspect all properties where there's reports of mould or water ingress, regardless of whether
it might be condensation related to mould or not, and obviously make sure that we remove
it as quickly as possible and then look at what measures we can put in place to stop
that issue from returning. And you're probably aware we've established our own in -house mould
the removal team. It becomes a bit more complicated when you've got leaseholders that are affected
by obviously condensation related mould or with water ingress. If it's water ingress,
then obviously we as the freeholder, whether that's the co -op or us, are responsible for
resolving those issues. What we wouldn't then tend to do is to do work within that leaseholder's
property. We might give them some advice and we might make safe, for example, if there's
water ingress that's affecting a light fitting, but we wouldn't kind of go in there and actually
do work on their behalf that would be for them to arrange.
Councillor Quichard. Thank you. It's interesting actually because
I think either at the last committee or the one before we had some discussion about All
Saints and I think it's correct to say that we can't take co -op back, they have to want
to come back. Yeah, so if there's been issues with the co -op, how we're working with them.
So I'd also be quite interested about what the Ombudsman found for the co -op. And also
I'm quite interested in the co -op forum. When we have borough residents' forums, we usually
have a counselor in attendance, is this something that we should just think about for the co -ops
as well?
Also, you know, it just gives an extra person there.
And the last question was, you talked about the special tool for working out whether or
not a roof needs replacing.
Did you say that was being used throughout all our properties, regardless of whether
they were being handled through a co -op?
That was the bit I wasn't quite clear, or we were using it throughout any property that
we manage.
So, yes, the first question, we can bring co -ops back in -house if they're failing.
There's a relatively recent example of Aquoid and East where, you know, they weren't performing
on a number of measures, including kind of repairs and health and safety matters.
So we did take steps to bring them back in -house.
and now that estate is managed by Central Area team,
but we're guided by the Modular Management Agreement
in terms of our relationship with them,
including what steps we can take to end that relationship,
well, end the relationship,
end the co -ops management of those properties
and bring them back in house.
So it does happen, but it's relatively rare.
Obviously, what we'd rather do is work with the cooperative
to make sure that they're performing
and serving the residents as well as we would like.
The co -op forum, interestingly enough, Councillor Ireland did attend the forum last night as
an observer. So yeah, I think that's an interesting point. I can take that away and we can perhaps
invite Councillors on a regular basis to that. I'll have a chat with her about it and see
whether she found it useful and if she would support that. Because yes, it's useful to
have that member oversight and for them to understand what happens at those meetings,
what's discussed and what the outcomes are. In terms of the sort of app I was talking
about, NEC Go Mobile, so yes, it's applicable to all of, ones of council managed properties,
including those managed by the co -operatives, so it would be used across all of them. I
think that's covered all the questions you asked, but if I missed anything, no.
Now, I think the one I asked was, were there any findings from this investigation for the
It kind of covers both the investigation.
So that's why I provided the training for all of the co -ops
because it relates a bit to how they handled
the stage one complaint, which was poorly
and they didn't compensate for the delay
in responding to that when they should have done.
And then also it was really about,
partly about them escalating it with the council
if they weren't getting the response that they needed.
So if they were going to the area housing team, for example,
to a particular officer and weren't getting a response. It was them being aware that they
should escalate that to us and senior managers of the council so we were then aware and we
could make sure that those issues were addressed. So I think that was the main thing really.
It was the relationship between us and the co -operative and then also as I say how they
deal with complaints at stage one. Can I make one other point too? I also
I mean, that's happened a while ago, but it's not clear to me whether any councils were
involved.
And obviously sometimes you wouldn't necessarily want people to take that route, but sometimes
that is helpful.
And I just comment because I, it obviously had started in 2019, which would have been,
I'm trying to remember who it was, but yes.
Offhand, I must admit, I can't remember which council is involved at which stage.
I do recall that there were counselling queries.
I think it was towards the kind of latter stages of the issue
when we kind of had worked out that things had gone wrong
and were in the process of addressing them.
But yeah, I'd have to sort of go back
and look at my records to confirm that.
Thank you.
So around the mobile app,
and it's good that we're exploring it
and we'll implement it, but are we sure
that we've got the processes in place
and the staff availability or resources or whatever
to make sure that the work is still done
in a timely fashion once that's there.
Because if I use an app with another service to go and log on
and they say, great, we'll look into this,
but the work still hasn't been done
and I'm still facing the same issues for a number of months,
I as the service user is still going to feel the effects of it.
And my other point was going to be
around the communication with residents.
So in cases like this, are we making sure
that we're keeping residents informed?
Because obviously if something's gonna take six months
or a year to repair, to us and to the department,
it might sound like that's a reasonable timeframe.
But for someone who's got water coming through their ceiling
they obviously wanna know
and get it done as soon as possible.
Yeah, so on the first point, I think that's a good question.
the building maintenance inspectors within the area teams and the co -op managers, they will
regularly be up on roofs anyway and probably inspect most of them throughout the course,
a lot of them throughout the course of every year anyway, just through their kind of natural response
to reports of roof leaks and investigations. So I think the gap has been that there isn't always
a record of that inspection and the outcome of that inspection, so they might be going up on
regularly, but we don't know when they got there, what they're finding about the condition of it.
So the purpose of the app really is to make sure that that's always recorded effectively,
so that we then have a record and with that record we can decide what action is appropriate
and monitor to make sure that action happens. So it's kind of less about the inspections perhaps
and more about the gathering of data and the recording of those inspections so that we can
make sure that they're acted on, you know, the findings from when they're up there. In terms of
keeping residents informed, and that was another sort of feature of the training that I gave to the
cooperatives. And to be honest, it is, you know, you'll probably know from your casebook, it is
sometimes a feature of, you know, the council and the way that we respond to complaints and issues.
So it's, it's mainly just reminding staff to continue to do that and to make sure they keep
residents informed and sometimes to manage their expectations because as you say, for
example, planning in a major work scheme takes a significant amount of time. So it's making
sure that people are aware of how long that's likely to take and communicate to them directly
to update them. But again, that comes a bit down to resources. It's quite resource incentives
obviously for all of our staff to continue to keep everyone updated in relation to every
repair job so it's kind of making sure that our officers are updating residents
when they need to be updated and in relation to repairs such as water
ingress as you say where someone is you know obviously affected by it you know
on a daily basis those are the ones that we need we need to and do prioritize and
to make sure that there's there's kind of very regular updates and the people
know exactly what's gonna happen to try and resolve that.
Can I just follow up?
Just a quick follow up was around, so I've noticed with a similar department, the waste
management contracts, we've sometimes had a system where they're meant to log like when
something's missed, when a bin bag's missed, but actually the staff on the ground just
don't have the time to do that.
And so with this app, are you confident that we have the resourcing to make sure it's
used efficiently in whatever way it's meant to be used?
Or has there been an extra cost involved
in terms of staff recruitment or training or whatever?
We bought the app, but we haven't introduced it yet.
And we haven't kind of fully determined the process,
but that's being worked on at the moment.
I think that we know how many routes we have.
So obviously we know how many kind of annual inspections
would need to be undertaken.
So if there's rooms that haven't been inspected that year, we would be able to clearly see that on our system.
You know, if there's not an entry for that, we would know that roof wasn't checked.
So it's quite easy to monitor to make sure we know kind of what may have been missed.
And we would be regularly reviewing that to check and then obviously making sure those rooms were inspected.
The resource question is difficult one. As I say, I think most of the rooms are sitting very high percentage of rooms are inspected every year anyway.
just for the course of normal day -to -day work in terms of, you know, checking and responding to
leaks, etc. But until we kind of introduce it and have probably done some sums about the time it
takes to kind of inspect a roof, how many we're doing already and how many rooms we've got,
I can't answer your question 100 % in terms of whether additional resources might be needed to
completely fulfill that. Obviously, if that is the case, then that's something we would have to look
out to make sure that you know those inspections are happening and and being
acted on. Thank you Mr. Crawley. I'm mindful of the time on this particular
subject but we kind of got to the point maybe of the recommendations. Are we
happy to note the internal reports? Councillor Caddy. Sorry can I just ask
something that's very tangent it's kind of widen this it was just that there was
a reference to the member responsible for complaints on page 11 and obviously
we don't have one.
And I guess my wider question was,
have we considered having one?
Should we have one?
Is it best practice to have one?
Because obviously, if it's being referred to by the Ombudsman,
the Ombudsman, I guess, is assuming
that we might have one.
I mean, we can take that away and have a look.
But obviously, any decision regarding political roles
and posts will need to be done by the relevant political
individuals really. Yeah and I don't necessarily form a view over whether it's a good or a bad idea but
it's maybe if it's referred to it's maybe something we should consider whether that's something which
would be useful for the council. Councillor Cutschild or any others? I'm just sorry I was just going to
say I mean perhaps maybe this is something that obviously there's going to be further discussions
around the the changes for the Constitution perhaps that's something we should just maybe
we ask the committee chair, as her chair role,
to just say this has been mentioned
and has it been considered?
That would seem maybe the right way to do it.
And I mean, I don't know if you're on General Purposes
as well, aren't you?
Yeah.
Oh yeah, sorry.
I don't know if we've got the General Purposes clerk
here as well.
I think you do. I think you have to.
Yeah, I was thinking, at the moment I think I'm happy for it to come here. As you said,
it's a wider question that we've got to consider, but I'm happy for it to be discussed here.
I mean, what I mean to say is the question, the wider question of should we have a member
responsible for complaints is something that we could just ask, say it's come up, we just
want to know have we considered it, is there any benefit and could that be part of the
review?
I think would – do you want me to ask it?
I don't mind asking.
Okay, so going back to recommendations, just do members note the internal report and the
recommendations at Appendix A and also B?

4 Audit Charter, Strategy and Audit Plan 2025/26 (Paper No. 25-107)

Okay, agenda number four, audit charter strategy and audit plan, paper number 25107, pages
15 to 52.
This is going to be introduced by Mr Gia.
Thank you, Chair.
So this is the annual paper that you get in front of you.
split out, obviously there's three separate appendices.
The first one is the Our Charter.
The audit team are part of a wider organisation, which is the South West London Audit Partnership.
It is hosted here by, under Wandsworth and Richmond councils, and the other three members
being Merton, Sutton and Kingston.
and this charter is for that whole organization.
There's not really much change from previous years,
a bit of tidying up, mainly reflecting in changes
in role titles.
You'll note that the previous iteration of this,
it had me down as the assistant director,
I'm now the director, there's no change,
I'm doing exactly the same as it is,
but we're all called new names.
And obviously Andrew, covering the head of audit role,
is now obviously assistant director.
So that's really the main sort of changes.
It does outline that the strategy that we are following adheres to both initially the
public sector internal audit standards and as we move towards the global internal audit
standards from next year, we'll follow those sort of processes.
But next B is the plan for the better service partnership.
It outlines obviously your C3 abbreviations, whether it's a joint audit, that's where
We are both under the umbrella of Richmond and Wandsworth working together.
And we've also highlighted the two where they're separated out, where the teams operate separately,
or the function or the specific asset sits within one borough rather than jointly.
And Appendix C puts things into context.
It shows you the whole audit universe that we cover.
You'll see this is year three.
It always is year three.
that line will always just move with it.
So you can see the previous two years audits
that we've covered and what we anticipate
doing in the further two years.
There's no guarantee that next year's
will be exactly as it is.
But that is our best guess and likelihood
of what we would be seeking to cover.
So hopefully that you'll see that we utilize
the 1 ,600 and odd so days, broadly, effectively,
cutting across the various different service areas
on a risk -based approach over a five -year period.
So, that's probably it, this is an intro.
Councillor Hedges.
Thank you, Mr. Giordotti.
Just a quick question on, I think somebody may have asked this before, but just wanted
to ask you about the global internal audit standards, noting they're coming into effect
very shortly on the 1st of April, and you say that we are substantially compliant.
Was there much of an uplift, if anything, and what was the uplift?
Thank you.
I'll defer mainly more to Andrew in the corner, but I think we brought a paper last time around
on this specifically, and we were showing that we're broadly in line.
We've got a reasonable period in place to implement those where we think we need to
move forward with.
Like with all standards, there are musts, coulds, shoulds, and it's getting the right
balance right as to where we think it's appropriate, because it's a global internal audit standard
which will cover a host of organizations,
not just local government.
And so therefore we need to make sure
that we take a pragmatic approach to it.
But I don't know whether Andrew,
whether there was anything extra you wanted to add to that?
What do I want to add?
I do.
So we're substantially compliant
because we comply with the public sector
internal standards and the global internal standards
build upon those.
Self assessment this year for the public sector
internal standards was good.
that carried on the theme from the external review that we had in 2023, which gave us
a good level of compliance against the PSIIS.
The main change, I suppose, for the global internal audit standards is there's a domain
around governance, and that includes the role of the audit committee and senior leadership
team within the council.
That's, I guess, that's the area that we'll need to spend most time working through in
terms of how we address that.
So some of that is around the committee having more responsibility for approving things rather
than noting things.
There are some areas that are exempt, specifically for local governments, so those would be things
like the Audit Committee approving the budget, which isn't appropriate in local governments,
so there's an allowance for that.
But in terms of how we do our job, you know, the day job in terms of how we complete audits,
there's very little change.
So, you know, come 1st of April, we won't be 100 percent compliant with the standards,
but until we do a self -assessment, we won't be in a position to say, but I am required,
as is Paul's head of audit, to come back to the committee with the next assessment, say
these are the areas where we're not complying.
we have a choice of whether we want to comply
with all of the areas so we can choose not to comply
with some areas if they're particularly onerous
or we don't think they're of added value.
And the requirement then is for us to notify you
by including that in our charter.
And so it's always like comply and explain.
So we can choose some specific areas not to do.
We'll try and implement most of it.
It's all really sensible stuff.
Yeah, I think that's it.
So we're pretty much there.
We'll bring updates during the year to say
if there are any significant areas that we need to change,
I suppose, but in terms of the day -to -day stuff that we do,
it will be the same.
Any other questions?
Councilor Caddy.
Thank you, Chair.
I just wondered if there were any changes proposed
to the plans, particularly for housing,
given the recent C3 rating, whether these kind of tests
and the internal audit focus had shifted at all
or should shift.
And then as a second follow on from that,
I guess are we reviewing our risk structures
to understand how we sort of missed that
and how we can perhaps mitigate
against a negative report in future?
Okay, so the rate, obviously the Ombudsman
and the inspector when they came in gave a particular grade.
But even from that report, I think most of the stuff,
there were known issues.
It was obviously outstanding factors and the issues on fire risk assessments had actually been brought to this committee more than once
on those so I think our coverage actually
Reinforces that report obviously reinforces that we had highlighted it
And I think it was either limited or no assurance on what one of the areas that have been brought back
So those areas I think are generally have already been addressed as part of the audit plan as such we do
regularly meet with the relevant departments.
Similarly, in areas in adult and children's services,
when they have an inspectorate,
clearly you'll have an oversight.
But I don't think there was anything significant new
in those sort of reports that hadn't already crossed over
that would have been part of our audit universe
that we would need to adapt and change.
Now the frequency of those audits
are normally based around the assurance levels
that we've got. Andrew and the team clearly have done the audit on the ombudsman's complaint,
which is a similar sort of control process type environment, knowledge, awareness and
everything else. Now that will feature no doubt into anything additional that we do
as well.
I guess as a follow -up, my concern is obviously that we have discussed the fire risk assessments
at this committee in the past and seemingly were not able to head this problem off and
have it dealt with. So is there a need to look at our systems again to understand how
it was that we were aware of the problem and yet it still wasn't resolved quickly enough
for the inspector?
Again, I think that's obviously been addressed. I know the full Council had some questions
on this particular angle. But if you look at the percentage of issues that were cleared,
the high priority areas that were cleared and that has been reported back
through to this committee as well. Now when you have got various different
resources available you prioritize and you get things carried out. Now
reputationally clearly nobody wants to get you know the rating that we did and
I'm not trying to undermine the report or downplay the report that's come
through. But if you think about what level of recommendations were being made
I know quantity wise there are loads, but it wasn't put in proportion to how many words
to start with and what had been cleared and those key real significant issues that were
addressed and I think also the other outstanding actions had been done at the time when it
was being reported back through.
So there was a proper program, it was already notified, it had been reported through to
the correct lines through scrutiny committees and through other departmental and directors
boards.
So I think the process is working.
Now clearly an inspector wanted us to work more quickly and get things carried out, but
from an oversight as to what we cover within those 1600 days, I think it probably demonstrates
that we know it's not perfect, but we are actually covering it right.
It is being brought here for yourselves to understand and address.
Reporting officers can be brought to this committee.
You had Tom Crawley here to come back and understand it.
So if you think about what we do as the Audit Committee,
I think it reinforces that our control framework
is working effectively.
Now there will always be issues that will crop up.
And if we had an infinite number of resources,
we would never get this.
But I think I take comfort in what's coming through
and our processes that we've got in place
because we were aware, we accepted the timelines
because like I said, some of those issues
on fire risk assessment had been come back here
and the explanations were done.
Can I just jump in a bit here?
I think we kind of need to not go into too much detail on that particular issue.
I think if there's questions for officers, we can probably pose some questions to officers
and maybe ask them to come at the next meeting.
But if there are any other questions on the order?
Yep, Councillor Critchard, thank you.
Sorry, I've got a few.
looking at first of all Appendix B. I was quite, I'll give them all at once, I was quite
interested in the Home Acquisition Programme and what the audit was going to cover there.
On page 40, completion of 24 -25 audits not completed by 31st March, I think there's a
typo.
It should be 25 presumably.
And I'm actually interested to know how much we've got outstanding.
And then there's some other detail work.
The other one was obviously we're looking at changes to the level of delegated authority.
How if at all will that affect our audit schedule?
I'll do the latter and I'll let Andrew talk about the other ones.
If you're talking about delegated authority, if you're...
The changes, the changes, yeah.
The changes to the Constitution.
I mean that's gone through due process.
Obviously, all that have been involved in the consultation, I've been involved in that
sort of element.
The main changes really is on the contract award stage.
That is not when decisions are made.
Decisions are made at scoping stages and that those controls have been strengthened, not
weakened, with the process of the information that officers should, sorry, that members
should be getting.
So I don't think there's a need for us to really to address in this program because
we're not weakening controls as a result of those changes, it's changing the focus and
shifting away from an award stage to a scoping stage, and scoping is where spend is determined,
not award.
And what we want in the contract.
Councillor Crichard, sorry, can you repeat them?
I couldn't keep up with your references to the page numbers.
I'm interested in the home acquisition programme audit. I just wondered what it was.
Are you going to pay?
Oh, sorry, yes, page 39. Page 40, I think there's a typo. When we're going to complete
our work for 24, 25, hopefully by the end of the year, and I just wondered how much
is left now on that.
And then I've got some other questions,
but that's on the next page.
Yeah, so typo noted, thank you.
That should have been 2025.
The Home Acquisition Program, I'm going to have to get back to you on that.
I'll take that outside if I can and come back to you.
I haven't got the full details to hand.
And the work that's still outstanding from the planned audits for this year?
I don't have the percentage, but it's very little.
So in comparison with previous years, we've done quite well.
So there won't be any work that all work has started, and most work will be either
field work virtually finished or will be at draft report stage and expecting to complete
three to final in the first month of next year.
So the budget that we've set aside for that is very low.
So we're in a good position.
Just to add to that, obviously the Committee does receive the full stats in the annual
report that comes later in the audit cycle, so you'll see all of the changes that were
made based on the plan that was for 24 -25 does get reported back to this Council later
on in the year.
I've just got one final question.
It's on page 40.
It's the fourth audit down, or the fourth area, basically, is information governance
and information security support.
Does that include cybersecurity?
Not specifically, no.
So Kevin actually does some of this for us, and one of our auditors sits on the Information
Governance and Security Forum group.
Kevin, did you want to talk about what you did?
That's probably more relevant, I think.
So, when you talk about cyber security and the council's defences, I think it is such
a specialist area where we do have market leaders, I think it's BA, we use to advise
council on that side.
So it's a skill set that is beyond probably pay levels that the council could afford to
retain itself.
so we draw in specialist to advise on that one area.
Councillor Quichard.
Thanks, and then I had some specific questions on the more detailed bit in three,
but I'll just highlight a couple of these.
I've noticed an audit's due this year on homelessness,
which is clearly that scenario where we have a lot of budget pressure and also on home
care and high cost placements, so there's two or three audits. Is there any chance that
the audit might indicate anything that might help us with budget control and budget management
or is that just not where we're going to go with, where you're likely to be looking?
We would generally include some level of budget management in all of the audit work that we
complete.
Okay, it's just because for those of us on finance, there's some pretty hefty pressures
there and whether we might, I just wondered, I mean, I suppose we'll have to wait and see
what you come up with, but it'd be interesting to know if there's anything that can be considered
about ways that we could improve or help ourselves with that.
I'll just quickly add then, just managing expectations realistically on what's feasible.
I mean certainly when you're looking at high cost placements, that's market forces
and you know whether or not you've got Anna or Jeremy depending on whether it's adult
or children, they'll both be adding to the issues of complex need as well.
that is beyond the remit of an audit function and what we can contest what
would be that making sure is that the control environment on approvals of
those high cost placements is as effective as it can be we're not the
right people to determine whether or not someone is get is should be placed in
you know with contractor a or contractor B based on their need that wouldn't be
that, you know, that wouldn't be our audit.
Okay, but we get something back about the control environment and that we're managing
the management of the placements properly.
Yeah.
Okay, thank you.
Just does everybody agree the recommendations for that paper?
Okay, thank you.
Moving on to agenda number five, this is the fraud update.

5 Fraud Update (Paper No. 25-108)

Paper number 25 to 108, pages 53 to 66.
Kevin introduced this one, this is mainly the service area.
So hello, Kevin Holland, I'm the head of the shared
fraud partnership and it's across the same five boroughs.
So this paper, it's in two parts.
First part is just giving the members a flavor
of how resources are to be used for next year
in terms of combating fraud, and the key details I would say are contained within tables one and two.
The main change is in terms of the main fraud type areas that we historically deal with,
with the reduction in the right to buy grant in November, we are expecting that rights by fraud
will all but disappear.
That's not the case at the moment.
Obviously that reduction created a huge surge
in interest and applications,
and there is a backlog of applications
and referrals to us that we'll have to go through.
But planning going forward,
we're looking to replace that area
with more intensive work and reviews
in around temporary accommodation.
And in addition to the resources I've got declared here,
I've also had funding, some temporary funding
for some additional posts, again,
to specifically target temporary accommodation placements.
The fraud type there is for, from my side,
it's probably more the short midterm placements.
So whilst there's a high cost involvement
with that overnight placement, that's one that's more
of a housing day -to -day monitoring issue,
but where people who place accommodation
for three months or more have it or need,
that's where they can potentially start
to see that placement as an asset
that potentially could be misused.
And that's the way I'll be looking to focus
our resources and our attention on going forward.
So with that in table two,
in terms of the sort of indicative targets,
There are new sets of targets in there around temporary accommodation fraud.
The second part is just to provide you with feedback of what has been completed during
the year, where the tables are up to the end of January.
And if you look at table three there, one of our key targets is in terms of temporary
accommodation – sorry, tenancy fraud and properties recovered.
I'm pleased to see progress in that area.
We had for a number of years suffering delays, and we're still suffering delays with getting court action.
But it is beginning to move forward.
But even with that, you see there are 13 cases there where the hearing's been held,
judgment has been given in our favor, and we're still waiting for, no, I think possession orders have been given to us.
We have to go through evictions and bailiffs in order to secure possession.
And again, we have to wait for court time to acquire those.
So it's constant pressure on that, but it is slowly improving.
And then it gives sets on the number of cases we deal with.
I think I'll probably just head off a question.
So my expectation is that of the referrals that we actually accept and
take on board to investigate, I would expect one in five of those to achieve a sanctionable
outcome.
And the reason this is sometimes, well, yes, allegations of fraud don't actually mean that
there is fraud, but also allegations we need to be able to realistically acquire the evidence
to prove it.
And sometimes we have to, unfortunately, cut and run on a, say, a fraud investigation case
for sanction wise because we know we're not going to be able to get the evidence we need
to actually achieve that. And then just at the appendix A gives a very sort of brief
details of some of the closed cases and yes happy to take questions.
I would be interested in on page 59 paragraph 19 it talks about data analytics and data
cleansing.
I wonder whether we are doing any more work on things like AI and data analytics perhaps
in order to help with some of those.
If you look at the social housing as you have already pointed out the social housing line
The benefit that we're getting there is like, I mean, it's hugely outweighs all of the other categories.
So that was, I guess, my first question.
And then on the second one, obviously, totally understand and agree with the terrible court delays,
not allowing people to have their houses or to be evicted when they're in there fortunately.
Have we got any kind of system for being able to sort of almost negotiate with them without
having to go to court or is there no leeway for that?
So is there any opportunity to sort of say, look, you sign away, you're going to be evicted,
we're waiting for a court date, you know, we'll help you with moving costs or I don't
know what it might be if you just leave and sign it across to us now.
Is there any opportunity for that kind of flexibility and pragmatism?
I'll go to the second part first.
Yes there is, but there's just a huge reluctance in terms of the person to do so.
And part of that may be some of the council's own services in the advice they've got to
give to people in residence.
So if they volunteer to leave, they're not deemed straightaway to be homeless.
So by volunteering to move on, if they haven't got somewhere else to move on to, they will lose certain rights and entitlements.
So certainly pre -COVID, we had lots of cases when we got there, keys would be handed over or things would be moved on.
The bit about working with housing, it's something we are going to be moving forward on, I think
we do closer work with the TA side, so we'll have a look at that again in terms of is there
anything more we can do with the backlog of cases, because again those numbers are increasing.
And then on the first one about the data analytics, well there is work, the work we do sort of
data matching through the National For All Initiative.
A lot of that comes up with, should I say,
false positive matches.
But we're doing a big drive on those across all the services
because everyone wants to make greater use of the data,
they say AI, smart decision making.
Well in order to do so, you need good quality data.
And if we've got lots of historical errors in our data,
then obviously we're just going to end up
with more false positives, which take time away
from working on real cases.
So we've got the two -prong attack on that
in terms of the data cleansing,
so that when we get to use the data analytics,
we'll get a better return.
Ms. LaHage's.
Thank you for the update.
Appendix A, number 10, talks about forged
or falsified documents, basically officers
that were submitting inflated or false overtime claims.
And it looks like the claims were exceeding over 39 ,000,
which is obviously quite a lot of money.
It says here HR to review and enhance systems and controls
to prevent similar breaches from occurring,
but also says here the weakness in the system remains.
So I just wondered if you had an update on that, thank you.
So yes, I was actually speaking with HR on that this morning.
So it's one of these things where there are a number of changes to be made to the Council's
HR system.
So we use something called Midland HR iTrent system.
and there's a whole scale review that's ongoing in terms of the benefits that the system can actually provide.
The overtime is one of those, so the reason why it remains is that the whole system's being reviewed,
So therefore, the issue over how the overtime claims
or exaggerated over claims were put through
will be picked up, but it will be picked up
within that wider review.
Councilor Lourdas.
Thank you.
On the officer fraud and instances where it's our own staff
and we've got evidence or allegations
that money has been taken or similar ways. If they've resigned what do we do
to follow that up to try and get that money back? So where we've got the
evidence to recover any sort of funds recommends to the council we would all
always do so. So even if officers have resigned they can be invoiced. If we have
officers who have resigned, I might say specifically this authority, but I know
once I'm investigating, officers have resigned but we're still carrying forward a case
jointly with the police for further action because yes the resolution, yes
you've gone, but you've committed fraud and there are still public funds to be
recovered. So we will always look to see if there is an realistic opportunity for recovering
money or in person council losses. We will always look to see if we can achieve that.
In these ones, the ones at ten, so it's been identified, it's been quantified, and that's
then handed back to the service now for them to recover. I know the invoices, some might
have been paid. I don't have it handed whether it's all been repaid, but I know they've all
been in voice and they are in the process of recovering that loss.
I mean if I can add to some of this, I mean obviously we just need to put things slightly
into context.
There's a difference between an employment matter, a civil court matter and a criminal
matter and there's different degrees of evidence that you need and your ability to go out and
to recover.
Clearly as Kevin's indicated, I mean those particular cases, three individuals or four
individuals originally. I was the adjudicating officer for that particular matter.
But so the ability to get some of the money quite often is the willingness of the individual
on the recipient side, those who have been dismissed, because clearly those who were
invoiced and some may be more willing to accept that the, shall we say, the issue at hand
and take appropriate action and refund the money.
Clearly, if they don't, we will need to then have to weigh up and assess the likelihood of success and expense
associated with taking that matter further through the relevant courts,
because these matters have not gone through courts.
They've only been done by an employment matter held in -house, and the ability to recover,
you would need to take further action if you were to pursue it.
I've just got one question.
I mean, Ms. Holland, it's just on the basis that,
and it's probably in line with yours and Councilor Lourdas
as well, the fact that there's these individuals here,
some that we may be taking action against,
some who may have resigned, how are we kind of,
I can't take ensuring that they are not
going to go and sort of join another council.
I know for the civil service, they
do have an internal fraud database.
So if there's any situation like this, the Cabinet Office, that information goes to the
Cabinet Office and they can't be recruited again back into the civil service.
So I'm just wondering if there's a similar set up for local authorities because there
is a national government or central government definitely.
Obviously with the civil service being one employer, it is probably easier to manage
than it would be for local authorities who are independent authorities and we need to
abide by GDPR and other regulatory issues.
So our ability in order to do that is limited.
We don't have the same freedom and flexibility that the civil service would have in that
particular manner about sharing information because, as I mentioned before, this is an
employment matter.
It isn't going through courts when appropriate sanctions therefore be able to be registered
beyond our own remit of what the Information Commissioner will allow us to do.
Any other questions? No? Okay. Is this one for note?
So does everybody agree to note this paper? The Information? Agreed? Thank you.
So moving on to Agenda Item Number 6, Annual Review of Ripper.

6 Annual Review of RIPA (Paper No. 25-109)

Did you want to go through this?
Yeah, I mean, I'll do it very briefly.
I mean, again, this is an annual paper
that you see before you.
It sets out in paragraph four the five areas
for where we will actually engage in directed surveillance
under the protection of the regulation
of Investigator of Powers Act.
And the appendix and table later on in the paper
outlines the areas where it is.
Although there are five potential different things
like parking permit fraud, fly tipping, etc.
We've only actually used it this last year
and for several years for the misuse of parking permit fraud.
You'll see the two different tables.
The first one is where we've actually utilized the protection.
That normally means us going to Magistrate's Court to get approval to doing so.
That would mean that the sentence for which we're investigating the crime under
would fall potentially of a sanction of six months custodial sentence or more
which normally means that will be investigated under the Fraud Act so they
would be no doubt probably using a stolen badge where it's a misuse. We
still will carry out that we still believe that that is the appropriate
thing to do and we still use the same techniques and the same style of
investigating it but we do it without that protection shield although we get
and inspect it that will come around regularly
to look and approve and to assess our use of these powers.
And as you know, when we've brought those reports back
to these committees, it's generally exemplary responses.
So we're seeking permission to continue doing
what we have been for the last few years.
Great.
Good.
Thank you.
That is the end of the meeting.
Just want to say, I think we just want to pick up on the other independent member.
As I mentioned before, that's all going to come through the committee, probably at the
next committee, or if anything happens in between, members will be updated.
Thank you.
Thanks.