Agenda item

Report on any non-compliance with Financial Procedure Rules and Contract Procedure Rules

Minutes:

The Committee considered a report presented by Steve Mawson, Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Director Finance, which provided details of all the waivers and breaches to the Financial Procedure Rules and the Contract Procedure Rules for the period 1st September, 2018 to 28th February, 2019. The report provided a summary of the number of new waivers and breaches recorded for each Directorate since the last audit report in October 2018. Details of waivers and breaches, were summarised in Appendix 1 to the report.

 

It was reported that revisions had been proposed to the Council’s Financial and Contract Procedure Rules, which were to be considered by the Elections and Democratic Structures Committee on 1st May and if supported, would be presented to full Council for approval on 17th May, 2019.

 

Holly Wilson, Head of Strategic Performance was also in attendance at the meeting and responded to questions from Members.

 

Members raised queries and some concern in relation to the new breaches to Council Procedure Rules as identified in the report, which had indicated that there was a lack of knowledge and understanding by some Officers in relation to contract and procurement arrangements resulting in breaches taking place. It was reported that a new training programme was to be implemented which would assist new managers coming in to the authority to understand the procedures. The Head of Strategic Performance had consulted on the revised Contract Procedure Rules, in order to make procedure rules clearer in terms of the tendering process. The Chair requested that the Committee be provided with further information regarding the arrangements being put in place to address this issue.  It was agreed that progress would be reported to the Committee meeting in October, which would allow sufficient time for Officer training to be undertaken and its outcomes to be assessed. It was further agreed that a table be included in the report for comparative purposes, showing the prior number of breaches and waivers, in order for Members to see what progress was being made.

 

Further to a request from Members, the Head of Strategic Performance and the Strategic Lead Adults Transformation provided an update on the current status of the unresolved breaches, as set out in Appendix 1 of the report.  It was subsequently agreed that an update on the Solar Centre, be provided to the Committee at its next meeting in June.

 

During further discussion, the Chair asked what outcomes had been achieved and what benefits had been identified as a result of changes to the structure of the Strategic Procurement Team. It was reported that the new structure had only recently been populated, therefore it was too early to provide an indication of the benefits. However, it was reported that internal Performance Indicators had been introduced to track progress within the Team and Directorates had indicated that they were satisfied with the level of service provided by the Team. Additional staffing had been put into the Regeneration and Environment Directorate, which had helped contracts being turned around more quickly.

 

RESOLVED that

 

(1)       the information and actions contained in the report regarding waivers and breaches in relation to the Financial and Contract Procedure Rules, be noted;

 

(2)       future reports detail the previous number of breaches and waivers for comparative purposes;

 

(3)       progress in implementing the training programme and its outcomes be reported in Octobers progress report; and

 

(4)       an update report on the Solar Centre, be submitted to the Committee’s meeting in June.

Supporting documents: