Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Flora Williamson and Independent Member, Nick Whitaker.

There were no declarations of substitute members

If you have a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest* in an item of business:

§  if it is not yet on the council’s register, you must declare both the existence and details of it at the start of the meeting or when it becomes apparent;

§  you may choose to declare a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest that is already in the register in the interests of openness and transparency. 

In both the above cases, you must leave the room without participating in discussion of the item.

If you have a personal interest in an item of business and you intend to speak or vote on the item you must declare both the existence and details of it at the start of the meeting or when it becomes apparent but you may participate in the discussion and vote on the item.

*(a)     Employment, etc - Any employment, office, trade, profession or vocation carried on for profit or gain.

(b) Sponsorship - Any payment or other financial benefit in respect of your expenses in carrying out duties as a member, or of your election; including from a trade union.

(c) Contracts - Any current contract for goods, services or works, between you or your partner (or a body in which one of you has a beneficial interest) and the council.

(d) Land - Any beneficial interest in land which is within the council’s area.

(e) Licences- Any licence to occupy land in the council’s area for a month or longer.

(f) Corporate tenancies - Any tenancy between the council and a body in which you or your partner have a beneficial interest.

 (g) Securities - Any beneficial interest in securities of a body which has a place of business or land in the council’s area, if the total nominal value of the securities exceeds £25,000 or one hundredth of the total issued share capital of that body or of any one class of its issued share capital. 

This applies to all members present at the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest.

RESOLVED

That the minutes of the meeting held on the 24 January 2017 be confirmed as a correct record subject to the deletion of Alan Begg and Nick Whitaker from the list of councillors present and the Chair be authorised to sign them.

It was noted that there needed to be more focus on reducing the number of agency staff.  IR35 was being implemented on the 6 April which may reduce the number of agency staff.  The Committee considered that the target needed to be at a more appropriate level and the Policy and Performance Committee could review this.

RESOLVED that the Audit Committee requestthe Policy and Performance Scrutiny Committee review the agency target, currently set at 13%, and set a more appropriate level.

The Chair welcomed Neil Hewitson and Paul Cuttle, KPMG to the meeting.

Neil Hewitson introduced the External Audit Plan 2016/17.

The following points were made during the discussion:-

·        Members considered there was a greater risk in managing the balance on the revenue budget rather than the valuation of land and buildings. 

·        It was noted that income generation was a new area of work for the Council and carried a risk with the lack of experience and the risk of new business.

·        It was noted that this risk would be looked at as part of the medium term financial strategy and the level of materiality would be considered. It was considered by the Committee that it would be helpful if the audit process could help develop this new area of work.

·        The level of materiality was reached through a standard set of calculations.

RESOLVED that the report be noted.

During consideration of the report the following points were made:-

·        It was noted that 10 days had been set aside for the income generation audit.  This could be adjusted if necessary.

·        Members of the Committee were pleased to see that there were audits planned for pest control and the blue badge fraud review.

·        It was noted that the design of the blue badge did not help prevent fraudulent use as the photo was displayed on the underside. The audit would include a review of high risk areas in Islington and look at other local authority best practice.

·        It was noted that there were five days allocated to third sector organisations and Councillors could report any examples they considered high risk to the Head of Internal Audit.  Some work had been carried out on third sector organisations in previous years.

·        The commissioning audit had been arranged at the request of management and internal audit would work with Service Directors on this audit.

·        That members requested an audit on ‘village principles’.

RESOLVED that

1)     the report be approved.

2)     The ‘village principles’ area be considered for inclusion in the 2018/2019 internal audit plan.