Agenda and draft minutes

Councillor Dave Shaw declared a non-disclosable interest during consideration of Agenda Item 6, ‘Breaches and Waivers to the Council’s Contract Procedure Rules’, in relation to Appendix 2, ‘Ubricity On-Street Residential Electric Vehicle Charging Pilot Scheme’, as being a local ward Member for the Town ward and a resident of Bennetthorpe area.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting held on 27th July 2023 and the extraordinary meeting held on 12th September 2023 be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

The Head of Internal Audit presented the Audit Committee Actions Log which provided an update on actions agreed during past Audit Committee meetings, allowing Members to monitor progress against all actions, ensuring that satisfactory progress was being made.

Members noted that four actions had been completed and the outstanding action was progressing in accordance with the agreed timescales.

In response to a question from the Vice-Chair, the Head of Internal Audit clarified that the action, as set out at Appendix 1 of the report in relation to the Taxi Licensing service related to an action which had arisen from the Audit Committee’s July meeting, following a review of the service reported to the Committee in February this year. A progress report was to be submitted to the meeting in February 2024.

RESOLVED that the progress being made against the actions agreed at the previous Audit Committee meetings, be noted.

The Head of Strategic Procurement introduced a report which detailed all the Waivers and Breaches to the Council’s Contract Procedure Rules for the period 1st March 2023 to 31st August 2023. The report provided a summary of the number of new waivers and breaches recorded for each directorate since the last Audit report presented to the Committee in April 2023 and October 2022 for comparative purposes.

Due to the realignment of the Council’s directorates, the Chief Executives directorate had been included in the figures going forward, the majority of spend was previously incorporated in the Corporate Resources directorate.

The Council at its meeting in September 2023 had approved changes to the Council’s Contract Procedure Rules.  The new rules were being embedded across the Council. The report further set out details of the Provider Selection Regime (PSR) Rules coming into force on 1st January 2024 under the Health and Social Care Act 2022, regarding procuring health care services contracts in England. The Contract Procedure Rules would be amended in January 2024 to reflect the changes. Small technical changes would also be made to Contract Procedure Rules in respect of new procurement value thresholds announced. The changes would be reported to the Audit Committee meeting in April 2024.

It was noted that three new breaches had been reported for the period, along with two resolved breaches and three unresolved breaches. There had been a decrease in the number of approved waivers to the Contract Procedure Rules for this period from 16 waivers to 11, to that reported to the Committee in April 2023, details of which were provided for in the report and accompanying appendices.

In response to questions from Members seeking clarification in relation to the breach relating to Supported Accommodation and Floating Support Services for Young Families and Parents and whether lessons had been learnt for the future when procuring contracts, the Head of Strategic Procurement explained that the breach occurred as the service area made a late request for a waiver which was not compliant with Contract Procedure Rules rationale for allowing a waiver. The contract had since been transferred from Adult services to the Children’s service commissioning team. The contract had been formalised for the period of the breach until the matter was resolved and the service had been recommissioned to ensure that contracts were in place for the breach period up to May 2024. It was noted that officers were made fully aware of the need to achieve compliance and assurances had been provided that this situation would not happen again. The Monitoring Officer provided further assurance that the Council’s arrangements for approval of waivers were robustly managed, which clearly demonstrated that arrangements were working by the waiver being rejected.

The Vice-Chair welcomed the report and congratulated Officers for the reduction in the breaches and waivers and the robust procedures in place. In response to a question regarding the Ubricity on-Street Residential Electric Vehicle Charging Pilot Scheme, as set out at Appendix 2 of the report, it  ...  view the full minutes text for item 107.

The Head of Internal Audit presented a report which updated Members on the work undertaken by Internal Audit and opinions issued for the period July to October 2023.

The Head of Internal Audit clarified points raised by the Committee in relation to the number of overdue management actions and completed actions arising from the school audits/investigations.  It was noted that Internal Audit had agreed revised completion dates with management relating to the Place directorate that would not have an adverse impact on the service.

In respect of the Section 106 agreements review, the Head of Internal Audit advised that the review had concluded that the contract had been procured in accordance with the Council’s Contract Procedure Rules and value for money obtained. The review had identified that there were no unspent S.106 monies and Internal Audit had recommended that improvements should be made to the S.106 process. It was noted that a wider review of S106 monies was ongoing. 

In reviewing the overdue high-risk level and medium to low risk level management actions, Councillor Dave Shaw requested that in order for Members to be able to gain a better understanding of the information presented and for them to carry out a detailed critical analysis of the data, that in future an analysis be provided in relation to whether the risks identified for a particular period were new risks, or existing risks carried forward from the previous reporting period, as he felt that it was not apparent from the information provided at the table at paragraph 3.6 of the report. The Head of Internal Audit gave an undertaking to present the statistics to the Committee in a different way in the future, to highlight those that have been overdue in previous reporting. Following further questions, Members were assured that there were no concerns in terms of the overdue high-risk level management actions risks identified and that if any issues of concern did arise, these would be brought to the Committee’s attention. It was noted that Doncaster was in a good position compared to other local authorities in terms of the risks to the Council.

The Vice-Chair, in noting the reduction in the number of overdue management actions, requested that in future the Committee should be provided with a summary of the medium to low level risks in a simplified format to identify the issues, the original implementation date, projected implementation date and current implementation date. It was subsequently agreed that information continued to be presented in the current format in terms of the categories of risks and to be reviewed by the Committee at a later date in terms of whether the current information added any value, and how they wished for information to be presented in the future.

Due to the reduction in the number of overdue actions, the Vice-Chair asked whether a deeper analysis should be carried out next year in relation to the scope of the Audit to identify any problems, the Head of Internal Audit  ...  view the full minutes text for item 108.

Peter Jackson, Head of Internal Audit presented the report which summarised the work undertaken by the Council during the period October 2022 to September 2023 to prevent. detect and investigate fraud and corruption in line with the Government’s Fighting Fraud and Corruption Locally Strategy.Paragraph 5 of the report set out details of the outcomes of the Council’s anti-fraud activity to counter act fraud.

Further to the publication of the report, the Committee noted an amendment to the Recommendation at paragraph 7 of the report, which should read as ‘The Audit Committee is asked to support the production of the Preventing and Detecting Fraud and Error report and note and comment on the report provided.’  The Chair also highlighted an error at page 49 of the agenda papers, and it was noted that the Appendix should follow the cover report.

The Chair commented positively on the work being undertaken by the Finance Team, Internal Audit team and teams across the Council in the prevention and detection of fraud, which provided the Audit Committee with assurance that the Council’s governance and risk control arrangements were effective. The Head of Internal Audit confirmed that the work had contributed to his overall opinion of the overall risk of governance and control.in the Council.

RESOLVED that the Preventing and Detecting Fraud and Error report and the errors, as outlined above be noted and supported.

Gareth Mills, Director, Grant Thornton, provided an update in relation to the External Auditor’s ISA 260 report, which summarised the key findings and other matters arising from the work undertaken by the External Auditor for 2022/23 on the Council’s financial statements audit of the accounts, prior to issuing their opinion on the Council’s financial statements. The Value for Money report for 2022/23, as part of the External Auditor’s Annual Report would be presented to the Committee at the meeting in February 2024.

Prior to presenting the report, the Director thanked the Committee for extending the deadline for completion of the External Auditor’s audit work. Members’ attention was drawn to the key headlines, as set out at page 3 of the External Auditor’s Executive summary of the ISA 260 report, including:-

• no audit adjustments had been identified impacting on the council’s outturn position and useable reserves
• although there were adjustments in relation to the value of the Council’s Pension Scheme, Doncaster’s analysis and judgement to include the Pension as an asset on the balance sheet was correct and ahead of the curve.
• aspects of the External Audit’s work outstanding were to be completed within the next few weeks.

Since writing the report, Perminder Sethi, updated the Committee regarding two further adjustments identified on the balance sheet in respect of the valuation of schools, which had been undervalued by £2.8m, which was due to a calculation error in the valuation. The second adjustment related to £0.8m spent on Doncaster Archives that had been incorrectly de-recognised. Both adjustments would be updated in the External Auditor’s final audit findings report.

The Director, Grant Thornton commended the Finance team for their significant achievement for completion of the draft Statement of Accounts within the deadline of 31st May 2023, which had placed Doncaster in a favourable position compared to other Local Authorities. It was further reported that to date no issues had arisen in relation to the audit. The External Auditor continued to have a good level of engagement with the Council’s Finance team whilst undertaking the audit. The accounts were on schedule to be completed within the next few weeks, which placed Doncaster in a good position compared to other local authorities across the country. In relation to the External Auditor’s work regarding the Council’s Value for Money arrangements, Members were informed that it was anticipated that this was to be concluded and presented to the Committee at its meeting on 1st February 2024. No issues or concerns had been identified as part of the External Auditor’s work.

Following the presentation of the report, the Chair on behalf of the Committee thanked and congratulated both the Finance Team for completion of the accounts and the External Auditor for auditing of the accounts, given the continuing challenges and conditions to complete the audit this year. The Committee recognised the positive achievement in completing the audit within timescales to that of other local authorities and, despite the challenges, had raised the bar, which further demonstrated that the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 110.

Gareth Mills, Director, Grant Thornton introduced a report which provided Members with an update on progress made on delivering their responsibilities as the Council’s External Auditor as of 6th November 2023 and Sector update.

It was anticipated that the External Auditor would issue its Annual Report by the end of December 2023 and their findings of the Accounts would be submitted to the Audit Committee meeting, scheduled in February 2024.

RESOLVED that Grant Thornton’s Progress report and Sector Update be noted.