Venue: Council Chamber
Contact: Susan Lightwing
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Welcome and Evacuation Procedure Minutes: The Chair welcomed all present and read
out the Building Evacuation Procedure. |
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Declarations of Interest To receive
any declarations of interest. Minutes: There were
no declarations of interest received at this point in the meeting. |
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Minutes - Corporate Affairs and Audit Committee - 25 November 2021 PDF 209 KB Minutes: The minutes of the Corporate Affairs and Audit Committee meeting held on 25 November 2021 were submitted and approved as a correct record. |
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Internal Audit and Counter Fraud Progress Report PDF 154 KB Additional documents:
Minutes: A report of the Head of Internal Audit was presented to provide Members with an update on
progress with the delivery of internal audit and counter fraud work and on
reports issued and other work completed since the last update report to this
Committee. A copy of the
Internal Audit Progress Report was attached at Annex 1 to the submitted report
and reported on progress against the internal audit work programme. A summary of current work in progress,
internal audit priorities for the year, completed work, and follow-up of
previously agreed audit actions was included.
Four final reports had been issued since the last Committee meeting and
a summary of the key issues was listed at Appendix 3 to the submitted report. It was suggested
that some indicative timescales for completion of current and forthcoming work
could be added to future reports. Agreed Audit
Actions that were outstanding for more than six months were listed at Appendix
5 to the submitted report, with an explanation of the reasons for the delay. A copy of the
Counter Fraud Progress report was attached at Annex 2 to the submitted report
and reported on progress against the counter fraud work programme. A range of work was detailed including
activity to promote awareness of fraud, work with external agencies, and
information on the level of fraud reported to date. Veritau had noted an increase in both regional and
national attempts by organised criminals operating from overseas to divert
genuine payments made to council suppliers (mandate or payment diversion
fraud). The counter fraud team was working with the Council to ensure that
controls were in place to meet this emerging threat. In
2021/22, the counter fraud team had received seventeen referrals of suspected
fraud. These covered potential adult
social care fraud, internal fraud, and debt recovery. There were currently six cases under
investigation. Working with Legal Services the team had assisted in tracing
three people who owed the council over £10k.
A further four cases were ongoing trying to trace debtors who owe the
Council a combined total of £15k. It was confirmed
that the audit report on Project Management - Boho X
would be presented to the next meeting of the Corporate Affairs and Audit
Committee. AGREED that the report was received and noted. |
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Community Governance Review PDF 334 KB Additional documents:
Minutes: A report of the Head of
Democratic Services was presented to seek the Committee’s agreement to proposed
Terms of Reference and consultation documents to enable a Community Governance
Review to commence in Middlesbrough. At the Council
meeting held on 28 July 2021, consideration and agreement of Terms of Reference
for the Community Governance Review, and consideration of any consultation
responses, was delegated to the Corporate Affairs and Audit Committee. Recommendations would be referred back to
Council for approval. Guidance
issued by the Secretary of State and the Boundary Commission. Indicated that it was good practice for
Councils to consider conducting a Community Governance Review every 10 to 15
years. Middlesbrough’s last Review was
undertaken fifteen years ago. A request
had been made by Nunthorpe Parish Council to
reconsider its current boundaries and it was therefore considered timely to
conduct a review of the whole of the Council’s area. Any decisions to make changes to parish
arrangements would
be implemented at the next full parish elections in 2023. It was proposed that Community Councils were
included in the Community Governance Review, since they played an equally
strong part in representing communities and acted as a mechanism for the
Council to consult at a local level. A Community Governance Review was
a review of the whole part or part of the district area to consider one or more
of the following: a) Creating,
merging, altering or abolishing parishes; b) The naming of
parishes and the style of new parishes; c) The electoral
arrangements for parishes (the ordinary year of election; council size; the
number of councillors to be elected to the council, and parish wards) and d) Grouping parishes
under a common parish council or de-grouping parishes. The purpose of a
Community Governance Review was to secure an arrangement that would bring about
improved community engagement, better local democracy and result in more
effective and convenient delivery of local services. The Council had
to consult the local government electors for the area under review and any
other person or body (including a local authority) who appeared to have an
interest in the review. There were a
number of requirements relating to the conduct of the review that had to be
observed as follows:
In order to
ensure that interested persons or groups had the opportunity to input and
respond to the review,
the following actions would be undertaken:
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Corporate Debt Write Off Policy PDF 462 KB Additional documents: Minutes: A joint report of
the Executive Member for Finance and Governance and the Director of Finance was
presented asking the Committee to consider a Corporate Debt Write Off Policy. The purpose of
this new policy was to provide a corporate approach to the writing off of bad
and irrecoverable debts in a fair and timely manner, whilst seeking to maximise
the opportunity for collection, thereby minimising the need for write off. All service areas
would have to follow this policy to allow the Council to operate a consistent
approach to debt write off, whilst having due regard to the customer’s ability to
pay. Whilst some parts of debt write off were governed by particular
legislative requirements such as Council Tax, Business Rates, Adult Social Care Debt; wherever possible the overall
principle of debt write off should be efficient and effective, and always give
consideration to the financial impact on the Council when debt was written off. This policy would
underpin any specific recovery strategies and be applied across all
directorates. The policy would also
support cross directorate communication where a shared customer base
existed. It was envisaged that the
approach would work within Data Protection legislation, and should be
considered at a corporate level to reduce multiple officer engagements across
directorates with the same resident and or business base. The introduction
of a Corporate Debt Write Off policy was part of the Council’s strategic direction, and as such required executive
consideration followed by Council approval.
The Council had a statutory duty to collect outstanding debt and did so
in accordance with the Local Government Finance Act 1992 and the Council’s Financial
Procedure rules. The introduction of this policy would
support this duty and also ensure that the Council’s debt write off
approach/methods were consistent, fair and efficient across all of its
services. This was the
third of four policies being developed that brought together a significant
number of supporting arrangements that would not only complement, but enhance the
Council’s social regeneration plans:
The policy set
out a framework for a consistent approach to write off by delegating debt
levels to various Managers/Heads of Service where the aim was to enable cases
that fitted specific criteria (contained within the policy) to be written off,
which would in turn enable the more efficient collection of outstanding
debt. The policy also sought to address
other matters such as credit balance write offs and the reinstatement of
previously written off debt. The policy applied to all debts owed/due to
the Council and the general principles adopted in the policy were as follows:
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Capital Strategy for 2022/23 PDF 639 KB Minutes: The Chair proposed that consideration of this report was deferred to the next meeting until Members had received further training on capital strategy. AGREED that Agenda Item 8 was DEFERRED. |
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Appointment of External Auditors PDF 380 KB Minutes: A report of the Director of Finance was presented to
consult with Members of the Corporate Affairs and Audit Committee on the
Council’s future external audit arrangements.
The submitted report considered
the options available and asked Members to endorse a preferred way forward for
recommendation to Executive and Council, if required. The current
auditor appointment arrangements covered the period up to and including the audit of the
2022/23 accounts. The Council opted into
the ‘appointing person’ national
auditor appointment arrangements established by Public Sector Audit
Appointments (PSAA) for the period covering the accounts for 2018/19 to
2022/23. PSAA was now
undertaking a procurement for the next appointing period, covering audits of
the accounts for the financial years, 2023/24 to 2027/28. During autumn 2021, all
local government bodies need to make important decisions about their external
audit arrangements from 2023/24. They
had options to arrange their own procurement and make the appointment
themselves or in conjunction with other bodies, or they could join and take
advantage of the national collective scheme administered by PSAA. Details of the
options available were set out in the submitted report. If the Council did not opt in to the national
scheme, there would be a need to establish an independent auditor panel to make
a stand-alone appointment. The auditor panel would need to be set up by the
Council itself, and the members of the panel had to be wholly or a majority of
independent members as defined by the Local Government Audit and Accountability
Act 2014 (the Act). Independent members
for this purpose were independent appointees, excluding current and former
Elected Members (or officers) and their close families and friends. Elected
Members would not therefore have a majority input to assessing bids and
choosing which audit firm to award a contract for the Council external audit. Alternatively,
the Act enabled the Council to join with other authorities to establish a joint
auditor panel. Again, this would need to
be constituted of wholly or a majority of independent appointees. Further legal advice would be required on the
exact constitution of such a panel having regard to the obligations of each
Council under the Act and the Council would need to liaise with other local
authorities to assess the appetite for such an arrangement. These would be
more resource-intensive processes to implement for the Council, and without the
bulk buying power of the sector-led procurement would be likely to result in a
more costly service. It would also be more
difficult to manage quality and independence requirements through a local
appointment process. The Council would
be unable to influence the scope of the audit and the regulatory regime would
inhibit the Council’s
ability to affect quality. The Council and its auditor panel would need
to maintain ongoing oversight of the contract.
Local contract management could not, however, influence the scope or
delivery of an audit. The national offer provided the appointment of an independent auditor with limited administrative cost to the Council. By joining the scheme, ... view the full minutes text for item 21/38 |
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Lessons Learned - Governance on Leasing our Commercial Assets PDF 567 KB Minutes: A report of the Head of Strategic Commissioning and
Procurement was presented to provide
assurance to Corporate Affairs and Audit Committee that relevant governance
processes and management were in place with regard to the leasing of commercial
assets. Following a
complaint, a joint investigation was undertaken regarding historical leasing
matters. The investigation was initially
conducted by Internal Audit, with a follow up, more in-depth review conducted
by the Head of Service. The subject
matter of the review concerned the leasing of commercial space in Broadcasting
House. The lease in question commenced
in 2013, it was extended in 2016 and due to the Covid-19 pandemic was continued
twelve months post its termination date. The subject of the review was value for
money linked to the commercial terms of the lease. The investigation concluded the following
key points:
Whilst community benefit was a legitimate
reason for reduced rent levels, both in 2016 and currently, clear documented
reasoning on the community benefit needed to be evidenced and recorded. In this instance the review could not find
any detailed explanations for the community benefit which was proportionate to
the reductions provided. It was documented
that the Valuation and Estates Officer was clear in their recommendation
regarding the levels of rent. However
this was not followed and senior management overruled the recommendations. At the expiry of the lease, the favourable
terms were not extended and commercial terms were offered. This reflected management changes and the
approach in practices towards commercial leasing. The occupant was not in agreement with the
significant increase in rent and subsequently sought alternative premises. Assurance was provided that significant
changes have been implemented which would preclude this issue from arising in
current leasing practice. The Valuation and Estates Team were now
managed within the Corporate Finance function.
The team was based within Strategic Commissioning and Procurement, and Had strong leadership through the Head of Strategic
Commissioning and Procurement, reporting directly to the Director of Finance. All leases for
commercial assets were negotiated by valuation and estates staff for the
majority of the asset portfolio. The
management of the Boho estates, Centre Square 1 and
2, and Tees Amp was undertaken by a team based within Regeneration, and Captain
Cook Square management was currently externally commissioned. In all cases, leases must be requested
through Delegated Approval forms. Legal
Services would not progress instructions without the receipt of an appropriate
signed Delegated Approval. Currently
there were three principal signatories for the delegated approval: Head of
Valuation and Estates, Head of Strategic Commissioning and Procurement, and
Director of Finance. Predominantly all delegated approvals were processed by the Head of Valuation and Estates to ensure consistency of approach. During periods of annual leave or sickness, the Head of Strategic Commissioning and ... view the full minutes text for item 21/39 |
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Any other urgent items which in the opinion of the Chair, may be considered Minutes: None. |