Agenda and draft minutes

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The Chair of the meeting has the discretion to terminate or suspend filming or recording, if in his or her opinion continuation of the filming, recording or reporting would disrupt or prejudice the proceedings, infringe the rights of any individual, or may lead to the breach of a legal obligation by the Council.

The Chair referred to the notice of filming at meetings and this information was noted.

To receive any apologies for absence.

There were no apologies for absence.

The Chair will consider the admission of any late items of Urgent Business. (Late items will be considered under the agenda item where they appear. New items will be dealt with under item 14 below).

There was no urgent business. 

A member with a disclosable pecuniary interest or a prejudicial interest in a matter who attends a meeting of the authority at which the matter is considered:

(i) must disclose the interest at the start of the meeting or when the interest becomes apparent, and

(ii) may not participate in any discussion or vote on the matter and must withdraw from the meeting room.

A member who discloses at a meeting a disclosable pecuniary interest which is not registered in the Register of Members’ Interests or the subject of a pending notification must notify the Monitoring Officer of the interest within 28 days of the disclosure.

Disclosable pecuniary interests, personal interests and prejudicial interests are defined at Paragraphs 5-7 and Appendix A of the Members’ Code of Conduct.

There were no declarations of interest. 

To consider any requests received in accordance with Part 4, section B, Paragraph 29 of the Council’s Constitution.

There were none.

To confirm and sign the minutes of the Audit Committee meeting held on 21 September 2023 as a correct record.

To Review the Action Tracker.

The word ‘billion’ on page 4 of the minutes would be changed to read ‘million’

RESOLVED:

That, subject to the above change, the minutes of the meeting on 21 September 2023 be agreed and signed as a correct record.

This report provides an update on progress against the audit recommendations of the Council’s external provider (Mazars) during 2022/23 and 23/24 on Housing Services and Building Safety for the following service areas: Customer Experience (Repairs); Leaseholder (Services); Stock Condition; Gas Safety; and Stock and Stores

Mr Jahedur Rahman, Operational Director for Housing and Building Safety, introduced the report.

In response to questions, the meeting heard that:

·      In relation to repeat repairs, at the point of receiving a call, the contact centre determined the nature of the repair. Investment into the service had been made so that the recording was made accurately and so the officer making the repair would attend accordingly. 

·      In relation to the quality controls in place to improve the quality of work, there needed to a be closer inspection. Where operatives reported to team leaders, the team leaders would routinely go and monitor some the jobs that were done so some ‘housekeeping’ work was completed. For example, taking pictures before and after repairs. A letter had been issued confirm the standard of working. Failure to comply with the new way of working would result in disciplinary action.

·      On the stock condition survey, the aim of this was to get a good understanding of the condition of the stock. At the moment, the Council had 70% access to its stock. The Council was finding it a challenge to get to 100%. Most organisations would try to clone the data for the remaining 30%. The Council was invested in visiting the remaining properties over evenings and weekends. It was possible that by the time this was completed, the rate may go up to 75% or 76% by February 2024.  This would form the basis of the planning investment programme. 

·      In relation to strengthening compliance on the spreadsheet, there was a risk that had been recognised in relation to the use of spreadsheets. Until working methods moved away from the use of spreadsheets, the risk would be present. There was a focus on getting alternative methods in place. A contract had been ordered for the new compliance system and by April 2024, the Council could start to use the new system. There were six areas of compliance and the electrical compliance would be implemented by April 2024. The remaining areas there would have a phased rollout.

·      In relation to the electrical programme, this was due to be completed by the end of the year. By December 2023, all homes would have an electrical safety certificate, though there were some homes the Council was unable to gain access. The Council had 700 properties in which it envisaged having to go through legal processes. In total, the Council had about 13,000 homes with a valid electrical safety certificate. This was a significant improvement from the start of the year. 

·      The Chief Executive and Council had made it clear that improving housing was a top priority.  The Chief Executive chaired a Housing Improvement Board where analysis was completed examining the issues in housing services. Cabinet earlier in the year had agreed an additional £5 million investment into the housing service. Approximately £2.7 million would go into the repairs service.  

·      Monitoring would be recorded on a public document. The document had gone to Cabinet for approval. In relation to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

An internal audit of the Lettings process was carried out by Mazars in February 2023, resulting in a report in July 2023. The audit provided adequate assurance but made a number of recommendations. The Audit Committee has asked for an update on the progress of actions resulting from the recommendations of the audit. 

Ms Denise Gandy, Assistant Director for Housing Demand, introduced the report.

The meeting heard:

·           Internally, additional checks had been introduced to make sure that the Council was complaint with the recommendations. The plan was monitored in relation to its delivery. As the lettings process was linked to housing improvement, the process would also go through to the Housing Improvement Board. Lettings would be reported on including the audit.

·           The audit on voids not having been completed was disappointing. There were some factors which caused this issue to occur. There would be a separate audit of the voids process. From the time the property becomes empty to the time it became lettable. The conclusion of the audit would be submitted to a future meeting of the Audit Committee.  

·           Although the report was concentrated on lettings, there were some recommendations that were more widely applicable. The report would be submitted to the Placemaking and Housing Board in January 2024 so that a link could be made across services on the recommendations and this could be part of the audit.

·           In relation to issues regarding bypassing, the Council had a policy regarding which individuals would be bypassed. For example, those with certain levels of rent arrears or if a resident had bid for a property which did not match their medical recommendations. The audit appeared to reveal moments where a member of staff was with the auditor, they could show that the recording on the system had been complied with. However, the audit reported appeared to suggest that issues had not been recorded on the Northgate system. Residents also bid for homes through the Home Connections website, but there were inconsistencies in the recording. Some were on Home Connections and some were on the Northgate system and Northgate needed to be the central point for all records. 

·           It was important to ensure that residents were not being bypassed unfairly.

·           Certain special cases would ordinarily end up being dealt with by the nature of the situation and were often dealt with by the team manager. Individual cases would be specifically given attention based on the decisions made about them.

·           In relation to ensuring that the right decisions were made, people had the right to a statutory review in terms of banding and suitability of offers.

At this point in the proceedings, the Committee queried having a system in place to ensure that the decisions relating to lettings were being made correctly. In response, the meeting heard that an option for an additional check could be explored further. 

The meeting further heard that:

·           It was important to distinguish between cases which needed particular attention and the transparency of the lettings process.

·           The Placemaking and Housing Board was an officer board. The Housing Improvement Board was attended by senior managers and some councillors. There was always robust challenge on a range of issues.

The Chair stated that applications relating to Northgate had been mentioned several times throughout the report. The Committee had also commented on  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

The Council has adopted the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy’s Treasury Management in the Public Services: Code of Practice (the CIPFA Code). This code requires the Council to approve, at a minimum, treasury management semi-annual and annual outturn reports.

Mr Tim Mpofu, Head of Finance (Pensions and Treasury), introduced the report.

The meeting heard:

·      A query was raised regarding why the Council’s rating was categorised as AA- whilst other local authorities had been allocated as A+. In response, the meeting heard that AAA was the best rating that could be awarded by a rating agency. The only counterparty that previously had this rating was the US Government. However, this rating had been downgraded to AA+ earlier in 2023.  The Council’s strategy was to mainly invest with the UK Government, which had an average rating of AA-, but the money market funds also had a similar rating. This averaged out to around Aa2. Generally, the ‘A’ category was considered to be investment grade. The ‘B’ category was more challenging in terms of the recovery rate if a counterparty was to go out of business and they were due money or deposits had been made. This highlighted the Council’s strategy was lower risk in relation to other strategies and this was partly because the Council had not deposited with other financial institutions which had lower ratings.

·      A query was raised regarding the appendix which discussed the maturity structure of borrowing. As the Council had a budget and there was some difficulty regarding the Council’s capital spend (some of which would be reliant on borrowing). Some decisions had been made in relation to freezing some of the spend due to the issues relating to borrowing. Although there was a balance that needed to be struck, the Council needed to make use of its financial resources. In response, the meeting heard that the primary aspect the Council was trying to balance was the cost certainty. Once the loans had been taken out, then it would be clear how much the loans would cost and for what period of time. This would allow the budget setting process to be more clear. This would be monitored closely considering the Council’s situation. The issues with borrowing in the current climate, given the rates, was that it was possible to borrow and deposit the money into the bank, but this meant that the money would not be deployed. At the same time, interest would have to be paid on the money borrowed. For loans taken out for a 50 year period, should schemes not be delivered in the first five years, then there would be a cost of carry. This meant that the Council was paying interest on money taken out which was not bent spent. One of the key things the Council looked for was the cash flows and how this was progressing over the course of the year. Earlier in the year, the Committee was informed about the amount of cash the Council had in the bank (around £70 million). This was enough for the Council’s needs and also limited the need to borrow money. At that time, a longer term loan would have been at the rate of 6%. Towards the end of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

This report details the work undertaken by Internal Audit in the period 15 August  to 6 October 2023 and focuses on progress on internal audit coverage relative to the approved internal audit plan, including the number of audit reports issued and finalised – work undertaken by the external provider (Mazars).

Mr Minesh Jani, Head of Audit and Risk Management, introduced the report.        

The meeting heard that:

·      It was customary for auditors to take a review six months after the work was finished. Now that the report had been issued, the recommendations would be revisited and assessments would be made as to whether the recommendations had been implemented. This would be brought that back to the Committee. There was always the opportunity to invite the relevant officer to a future meeting if it was felt that recommendations had not progressed appropriately

·      In relation to the issues around SEND, there was a plan in place to make improvements, the timeline for this would be provided to the Committee.

·      In relation to the waiting times noted for the assessments regarding Autistic Spectrum Disorder, the timeline for when the improvements would be provided to the Committee. 

·      In relation to the six-monthly review, there was a slightly different regime for schools. Where schools had been assigned the lowest level assurance, a follow up was carried out. This was usually an annual process (not a six-monthly one). All of the work done during the year would be captured and then a follow-up was completed.  This timescale could be anything from three months to 11 months.

RESOLVED:

To note the audit coverage and follow up work completed.

This report details the work undertaken by the in-house resources in the Audit and Risk team and communicates a first update on completion of the work plan for 2023/24.

Ms Vanessa Bateman, Deputy Head of Audit and Risk Management, introduced the report.

The meeting heard that:

·      In terms of the sanctions that had been issued and accepted by the people misusing the blue badge scheme, there was around £3,000 income that had arrived into to the budget.

·      It was important to maintain a certain level of anti-fraud awareness and anti-fraud processes across most of the Council’s operations and blue badges had not been examined for a while so there was a little more emphasis in this area currently. Hopefully in the next two or three months, the Council would move to a place where most of that work would be taken up by the service. 

·      The Council had a fraud reporting email address and a phone number. Earlier in the year, there was a national fraud campaign and some work had been done with the team to promote this. Residents did often report issues of suspected fraud which occupied the team to gather intelligence and form a view of a particular issue.  Efforts were made to publicise public participation including a written note in the members newsletter and councillors could use the members inquiries avenue available to them.  The team were much more efficient at dealing with queries if they were raised through the standard channels. Whistleblowing in Haringey had been very high in the past and this had settled in recent times. Whistleblowing was also commonly reported to HR and efforts were made to keep a general perspective of all of it. Some of what was submitted to HR could be classified as grievance as well as whistleblowing. The team did well to reassure people about remaining anonymous and investigations were completed without any indication of where the initial intelligence had primarily arrived. There was a slightly higher percentage of frivolous or malicious whistleblowing than expected.

·      There had been whistleblowing about third party organisations where the Council commissioned resources. This was always positive as sometimes those establishments were harder to reach.

·      The technology in the blue badge area had improved helping the Council do its job. There was much more information to the operatives in the borough about the badges that were cancelled or stolen. A blue badge did not always link to a specific vehicle, it was linked to the person but the technology regarding whether or not the badge used was valid was strong and reliable. Although there was theft around blue badges, the Council had a lot of communication from the Police where there were reports of fraud and selling of the badges. The team wanted to focus their efforts on this sort of disruption in the borough. The financial sanctions were now over and above a PCA and there appeared to be deterrence from the fraud. 

·      Systems, data and accurate audit trails would significantly help the Council. One of the challenges the Council had was its teams using different systems so officers would spend time going through various systems to carry out analysis. In  ...  view the full minutes text for item 11.

In line with the Council’s Constitution, Committee Standing Orders, Paragraph 2, that the Council may resolve that non-voting members, assessors and advisers shall also be appointed to any such committee or other body, and shall hold office until the annual meeting in the year following their appointment or for so long as the Council deem appropriate, whichever is the earlier; and if they resolve to make such appointments, shall specify the number of appointments to be made and the functions in relation to the body that each person so appointed may exercise, the appointment of the two independent non-voting members requires a recommendation from the Audit Committee to Full Council for approval. The Full Council received a paper on 27 March 2023 (see attached Appendix 1), setting out the need for the composition of an Audit Committee, and subsequently agreed its membership and its Terms of Reference which included two non-voting independent advisors.

Mr Minseh Jani, Head of Audit and Risk Management, introduced the report. 

Members welcomed the report.

RESOLVED:

1.   To recommend to Full Council the appointment of the two independent non – voting advisors set out at paragraph 6.2 of the report for a period of 4 years commencing on 1 October 2023 and ending on 30 September 2027.

2.   To recommend to Full Council that each independent adviser receive an allowance of £1,250.00 per annum.

To update the Committee and provide assurance on the progress to address the significant governance issues identified within the 2022/23 Annual Governance Statement (AGS).

Mr Minesh Jani, Head of Audit and Risk Management, introduced the report.

The meeting heard that:

·      There was confidence that from a governance point of view, as an authority, the Council would to do everything it could to improve and to make sure that the right framework was set with the right behaviours and the right culture. For example, putting something into practice that was recommended, but was not a requirement for local authorities. The Council had a code for local governance but this needed to be updated and work was being done to make sure that the document was in place. It was important for the Council to ensure that it set out its standards clearly. However, the Council was still open to challenge and there many challenges as a public sector entity and these challenges would test the governance framework.

·      In relation to savings, local authorities had been required to make savings for a significantly lengthy period of time, each year making savings became harder. Officers were grappling with a difficult situation which was not going get any easier in the coming year. In that process however, there must be a mechanism by which the Council could assure itself that any savings proposals put forward had a realistic chance of delivery and they could be realised in due course. This was recognised in the Council and senior leadership colleagues had assessed that and were working through a process whereby there was a review of proposals and it would identify if the proposals were determinately possible. The delivery of savings also became important consideration as savings could be made, but by taking different routes. Ensuring the right infrastructure and the right framework for identifying and delivering savings was a prime consideration.

·      In relation to commercial property, the area was assigned nil assurance previously, there would be a new audit of commercial property. It was important that the governance had improved in that area. The findings of the audit would be reported back to the Committee. The audit had been completed but the auditors had not yet completed the report.

·      There had been times where attempts to implement new solutions had not gone as expected. Digital transformations were never necessarily straightforward or easy. Every year, attempts were made to identify areas where the level of risk was high and assurances were needed to try to program in some level of audit coverage to give assurances as early as possible. If there were things that are not going to plan, then this could be observed early on.

·      In the plan for last year, a review was programmed which was completed in 2023 for both Children's and Adults services and this had gone well. This would be helpful for the services, because the solutions that were sought were going to be more efficient and should provide more information. There were opportunities presented from these transformations.

RESOLVED

To note the progress reported

There were no new items of urgent business.

1 February 2024      

7 March 2024

The date for the next Audit Committee would be changed from 1 February 2024 to 18 January 2024.