Agenda and minutes

Any apologies for absence that have been received will be noted at this point.

Apologies had been received from Mr Marshall, Mr Bell, Mrs Hardwick, Mr Dignum, Mr French and Mr Cherry.

The committee is requested to approve the minutes of its ordinary meeting on 22 January 2015.

The minutes of the meeting held on 22 January 2015 were agreed as a correct record.

The chairman will announce any urgent items that due to special circumstances are to be dealt with under agenda item below relating to Late Items.

There were no urgent items.

These are to be made by members of the Corporate Governance and Audit Committee or other Chichester District Council members present in respect of matters on the agenda for this meeting.

There were no declarations of interests.

The procedure for submitting public questions in writing by no later than 12:00 on Wednesday 11 March 2015 is available upon request to Member Services (the contact details for which appear on the front page of this agenda).    

There were no public questions submitted.

To consider and note the following reports from the external auditor – the Audit Plan year ending 31 March 2015, the Audit Progress Report and the Local Government Sector Briefing.

Mr King and Mr Mathers from Ernst & Young LLP (EY) presented the reports responding to questions as follows:

·          Mr Mathers expanded on the comment on page 11 regarding reliance on the work of internal audit wherever possible. There would be no change with the relationship with Internal Audit (IA), which will normally test all internal controls annually. EY will rely on that work wherever possible, not duplicate any effort.

·          EY use Audit Commission best practice data showing levels of spend across all local authorities, focusing on near neighbours and looking at the wider context of the data. Will consider high levels of spend in certain areas, income levels and the picture overall.

·          The proposal to close the accounts earlier was being discussed with the Finance team who were reviewing financial statements in order to declutter these and considering the relevance of all disclosures and planning the use of estimates to close down accounts expediently.The focus should be to carry out more controlled work during the year to allow a reduction of work at year end. The new timescale would be in effect for the 2017/18 accounts so would allow two years of dry runs.

·          The cause of the housing benefit subsidy claim was acknowledged to be human error, rather than processes. Mr Ward confirmed that staff training had been put in place with testing by team leaders and reports had now been initiated from the system.

RESOLVED

That the Annual Audit Plan 2015/16 and Audit Plan Progress 2014/15 reports be noted.

Mrs Hotchkiss and Ms Hakes gave an update on the progress achieved in reconciling income and expenditure at the Novium. Structures and systems had now been put in place. An electronic point of sale system is used and old stock was being sold off. A new system of invoicing had been implemented alongside the new marketing initiatives.

Mrs Murphy gave a thorough update on the progress achieved with the Car Parks income reconciliation. There were numerous new initiatives arising from the wholescale review carried out in the last two years. The Council was working with West Sussex County Council to procure an electronic system which would allow more streamlined co-accounting. The risk of fraud was driven down by encouraging more card payment and less cash dealt with.

Mr James gave an overview of progress in Chichester Contract Services. There was an issue with green waste and trade waste invoicing and reconciliation. The range of services being provided and the lack of an intelligent database had compounded matters. A new software system (Bartec) was due to be implemented in June 2015. An officer had been seconded to the service for 12 months to carry out an improvement review, which would pick up income reconciliation.

Mr James gave an update on the audit plan proposals and progress achieved.

RESOLVED

1.     That the Income Management oral reports be noted.

2.     That the 2015/16 Audit Plan be noted.

3.     That the 2014/15 Audit Plan progress report be noted.

The committee is requested to consider and agree its work programme for 2015/16.

It was requested that an audit report giving details of the outstanding monies owed to the Council by Coinco be provided to the committee in June 2015.

RESOLVED

That the 2015/16 work programme be agreed.