Agenda item

To confirm and sign the minutes of the Audit Committee meeting held on 20 July 2023 as a correct record.

To review the Action Tracker.

RESOLVED:That the minutes of the meeting on 20 July 2023 be agreed and signed as a correct record.

In relation to the Action Tracker, members queried the contracts and frameworks list. The meeting noted that the procurement systems the Council had at the moment were not fully operable as of yet. Internal audit had carried out a number of reviews around procurement sites. A number of the reviews that that had been carried out had been assigned limited assurance. There were concerns about the operational procurement activities in the organisation. They could relate to issues like how contracts were let. For example, consideration needed to be given to when the Council let contracts and if the Council would be satisfied that it was getting value for money through the number of bidders.  Contract management and how the contract register was maintained had also been examined. These three areas had all been assigned limited assurance.

The formally constituted Corporate Committee received a presentation from the Head of Procurement in September 2022, which was where the actions first arose. At that meeting, the Head of Procurement explained that he wanted to make changes and that those changes would take time including the need for replacement for IT systems that the Council used. Councillors’ comments would be raised by the Head of Procurement and he would be asked to review his comments in light of councillors suggestions to see if it was possible to get a rough estimate so that some clarity could be attained regarding the number of tenders that went through. Depending on the threshold of the value of the contracts, the Council was required to follow up the process. It was important for the procurement team to have that information available to them as well. There was large element of work that was ongoing at the moment in terms of what needed to change. It would be helpful to invite the Head of Procurement to the next meeting to give an update on progress.

Members expressed that, as it sounded like the work that procurement had to complete would take a long time, it would be ideal for the Committee to receive a rough estimate sample from different dates, so that the Committee could get an idea of processes in place and where the risks still lay.

Organising members’ training on the right to buy process would be followed up and an update would be provided to the Committee.

The Committee asked for an update on Temporary Accommodation including the cost of Temporary Accommodation at a future meeting.

The meeting felt It would be useful to receive a report on risk management strategy which included an update (or a risk management strategy) on leisure services by the next meeting. The meeting heard that these two matters were separate. The former matter was around the Council's policy and process for dealing with risk and for the identification of the key risks in the organisation. The Council had appointed a company called Zurich Municipal who were the Council’s our insurers to help the Council review its current arrangements. This would examine how effective the policy and framework for managing risk was and to also help develop risk registers at the directorate and corporate level so that the Council had a good view of key risks in all the services at the corporate level supported by a strong framework of risk management of the organisation. Once the work was finished, it would be possible to bring the outcome of that to the Committee. The Committee would  then have the visibility of the risks that had been identified and the framework that underpinned how those risks could be managed. Although there were risk registers, there was more the Council could do to bring the risks more in line with what current risks were and to think about what risks were oncoming.

The Chair felt it would be useful to have an update regarding the matter at each meeting and it may be useful for the Committee to examine the risk register.

In relation to leisure services, a request to the service had been made to help create the risk register. There had been recent developments in terms of how the leisure service was progressed but another request could be made again to provide an overview of what residual risks remained.