Agenda item

Members considered a report which provided an update on the work, outputs and performance of the Audit and Counter Fraud Team for the period 1 April to 31 August 2019.

The Audit and Counter Fraud Shared Service Manager reported that, since the report had been finalised, 27% of the Plan had now been delivered with a further 49% underway. In addition, the recent Ofsted inspection of children’s social care services which found the service to be inadequate overall represented a change in the risk environment since the Audit Plan had been approved. Internal audit would be carrying out assurance work in children’s services and as a result other reviews would be delayed until next year to free up time. Full details would be reported to the next meeting. 

A Member queried whether internal audit would apply the finding from Ofsted about weaknesses in the accuracy of management information in children’s services to reviews in adult social care so that the same issue was not repeated. The Audit and Counter Fraud Shared Service Manager advised that he had met with the manager responsible for drawing up the action plan in response to the Ofsted report. Some of the urgency was around financial sustainability and the Internal Audit team would be working with Children’s Services on audit reviews needed in that area. Internal Audit would take on board the findings of the Ofsted report when carrying out any reviews in Adult Social Care but he was not aware of any concerns at present which suggested there was a similar problem regarding management information in Adult Social Care.

A Member referred to the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Transport review and a recent challenge to the Council about only providing transport to the nearest school and potential liabilities to the Council that could arise from this. The Chief Legal Officer advised this related to a complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) and the LGO’s report on this matter would be considered by Council in January. Each home to school transport application was decided on its own merits so it did not follow that the LGO criticisms of how the policy had been implemented would cause further problems but it would be kept under review.

Referring to the Adult social care (assessments and reviews of care packages) review a Member queried why only 18 cases had been sampled. The Audit and Counter Fraud Shared Service Manager advised that as no problems had been identified a decision had been made to not test any more samples. The service had now decided to implement the changes recommended across the service. In response to a suggestion this approach could be followed in children’s social care, the Audit and Counter Fraud Shared Service Manager commented that there was a different approach in children’s services as children’s needs differed to those of adults but Internal Audit would be reviewing care packages in children’s services. The Chief Legal Officer undertook to raise at the Children’s Services Improvement Board whether any lessons could be learned from the Adult Social Care audit review.

A Member asked if a review of business parking permits could be considered in the future.

The Chairman referred to the finding of a CIPFA ethics survey of members and other public sector accountants where over 50% of respondents said they had been placed under pressure to act in an unethical way. A report on ethics in the Council would be considered at the next meeting.