Items
No. |
Item |
1. |
Apologies for Absence
Minutes:
1.1
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Apologies for absence were
received from Councillors Rob Frost and Sioned-Mair Richards and
Co-opted Independent Members Rick Plews and Liz Stanley.
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2. |
Exclusion of Public and Press
To identify
items where resolutions may be moved to exclude the press and
public.
Minutes:
2.1
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No items were identified where resolutions may
be moved to exclude the press and public from the meeting.
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3. |
Declarations of Interest PDF 65 KB
Members to declare any
interests they have in the business to be considered at the
meeting.
Minutes:
3.1
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There were no declarations of interest.
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4. |
Appointment of Deputy Chair
To appoint a Deputy Chair of the Committee for
2015/16.
Minutes:
4.1
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Resolved: That Councillor Joe
Otten be appointed as Deputy Chair of
the Committee for 2015/16.
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5. |
Minutes of Previous Meeting PDF 83 KB
To approve the minutes of the
meetings of the Committee held on 28 April and 20 May
2015.
Additional documents:
Minutes:
5.1
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28 April 2015
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5.1.1
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The minutes of the meeting of the Committee
held on 28 April 2015 were approved as a correct record.
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5.2
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20 May 2015
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5.2.1
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The minutes of the meeting of the Committee
held on 20 May 2015 were approved as a correct record with the
start time of meetings provisionally changed to 5.00 p.m., subject
to consultation with the Co-opted Independent Members.
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6. |
Annual Governance Statement 2014/15 PDF 59 KB
Report of Director of Legal and
Governance.
Additional documents:
Minutes:
6.1
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Gillian Duckworth, Director of Legal and
Governance, submitted a report that contained the Annual Governance
Statement (AGS) for 2014/15 that formed part of the Council’s
Statutory Accounts. The report explained that the Council had
approved and adopted a Code of Corporate Governance and the AGS
explained how the Council complied with that Code. Two key elements
of the governance arrangements were the Council’s internal
control arrangements and how it demonstrated these arrangements to
its citizens and service users.
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6.2
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The Director stated that the report was used
to highlight non-compliance and there were no significant control
weaknesses to report this year. She referred to the governance
issues set out in the report relating to the Transparency Code,
Reports in Relation to Rotherham Council and the Assessment of
Child Sexual Exploitation Services (CSE) in Sheffield, Fraud Risk
Management, Information Governance, Adult Social Care, Capital
Project Management and Human Resources People Management. Although
these were not being highlighted as areas with serious control
weaknesses, the report was acknowledging that they were areas where
governance issues had been raised and were being addressed and
monitored.
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6.3
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In response to a question from a Member of the
Committee regarding sickness monitoring and the myView system, the
Director indicated that there was a non-compliance issue in 2013/14
but not in 2014/15. There were new systems and procedures in place
from April 2015 and the issues relating to the myView system were
being addressed. These arrangements would be monitored during the
year.
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6.4
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The Director responded to a further question
relating to the review of Sheffield’s use of Scrutiny
Committees and the extent of Member development that would be
carried out in 2015/16, arising from the report on the Assessment
of CSE Services in Sheffield, and indicated that a training package
had been put in place immediately.
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6.5
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The Chair of the Committee commented that the
issues relating to Adult Social Care would be addressed by the
Committee during the year.
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6.6
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Resolved: That the
Committee:-
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(a)
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notes the Annual Governance Statement 2014/15
that forms part of the Statutory Annual Accounts and that this has
been signed by the Council Leader, Chief Executive and the Interim
Executive Director, Resources; and
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(b)
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requests the Director of Legal and Governance
to submit a progress report to the Committee in six months’
time on the issues raised in the report.
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7. |
Summary of the 2014/15 Statement of Accounts PDF 49 KB
Report of the Interim Executive Director,
Resources.
Additional documents:
Minutes:
7.1
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Clair
Sharratt, Acting Senior Finance Manager (Strategic Finance),
introduced a report of the Interim Executive Director, Resources
that provided a summary of the 2014/15
Statement of Accounts. The report also explained the core
statements and a number of the key notes to the accounts and gave
details of the key issues for 2014/15 relating to net worth and
usable reserves. The Statement of Accounts was subject to audit by
KPMG, the Council’s auditors, and their findings would be
submitted to the September meeting of the Committee. There was a
period for public inspection of the accounts from 13 July to 7
August.
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7.2
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The
Acting Senior Finance Manager also referred to the Government’s intention to bring
forward the deadline for preparing the draft accounts to 31 May and
the final accounts to 31 July from 2017/18.
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7.3
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Officers responded to questions relating to the deficit on the
Income and Expenditure Statement of £109.3m and explained the
treatment of capital charges and pensions’ evaluation in the
accounts and that there was a move to international reporting
standards and having a number of items on an accruals base. The
Government allowed local authorities to
‘reverse out’ non-cash items.
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7.4
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In
response to a question relating to the increase in usable assets
and whether they could be used towards frontline services, officers
stated that capital could not be used towards revenue and the
Housing Revenue Account (HRA) reserves could only be used for HRA
purposes. The Council had one of the lowest amounts of un-earmarked
reserves and the General Fund Balance of £11.186m was low for
an organisation of this Council’s size. Officers also
responded to further questions relating to the pension forecast for
2016/17.
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7.5
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At the
request of the Chair, there was discussion on whether to have a
Member training session on the Accounts.
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7.6
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Resolved: That the
Committee:-
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(a)
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notes
the report; and
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(b)
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requests the Acting Senior Finance Manager (Strategic Finance)
to arrange a training session on the Accounts for members of the
Committee in early September 2015.
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8. |
Certification of Claims and Returns Annual Report 2013/14 and Completed Action Plan PDF 31 KB
Report of the Director, KPMG.
Additional documents:
Minutes:
8.1
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Sue Sunderland, Director KPMG, submitted the
2013/14 annual report for the certification work that KPMG had
undertaken on the grant claims and returns in relation to the
Housing Benefit Subsidy and the Pooling of Housing Capital
Receipts. Appended to the report were the action plan, follow up
from the recommendations from the work and the agreed action
plan.
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8.2
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In response to a question from a member of the
Committee, the Director indicated that there would be further
standard testing of the Housing Benefit Subsidy claim.
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8.3
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Resolved: That the report is
noted.
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9. |
Progress on High Opinion Audit Reports PDF 66 KB
Report of the Senior Finance Manager.
Additional documents:
Minutes:
9.1
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Kayleigh Inman, Senior Finance Manager
(Internal Audit), introduced a report providing an update on
progress made against recommendations in audit reports that had
been given a high opinion and proposing that two audits were
removed from the action tracker. She indicated that :-
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Service officers were to attend the September meeting of the
Committee to report on the progress in implementing the outstanding
recommendations from the Markets Service audit report.
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Audit officers would be attending meetings of the City Wide
Learning Body and the Schools Forum and would be contacting the
Chair of Governors to progress the outstanding recommendations from
school themed reviews.
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Further to the attendance of service officers at the meeting of
this Committee in November 2014, there were three recommendations
still outstanding from the Parking Services audit for which there
was a revised implementation date. There would also be a further
full review undertaken by Internal Audit.
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9.2
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The Chair of the Committee highlighted the
mixed picture in terms of progress and the areas that required
follow up. He referred to the questions in relation to the Markets
service submitted by Liz Stanley (Independent Co-opted Member) who
was unable to attend the meeting. The Senior Finance Manager agreed
to circulate a written response to those questions to members of
the Committee.
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9.3
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The Senior Finance Manager responded to
questions relating to the audits of Schools Attendance, Waste
Management Contract, Short Term Intervention Team and Markets
Service and indicated that:-
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Attendance by Internal Audit officers at the City Wide Learning
Body etc. would capture a larger population of schools and provide
the opportunity to stress the importance of implementing the
recommendations. The item would remain on the tracker until
satisfactory progress had been made.
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·
The outstanding recommendations relating to the audit of the Waste
Management Contract would be followed up and remain on the
tracker.
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·
A large amount of the work relating to the implementation of the
recommendations from the audit of the Short Term Intervention Team
was included in the Adult Social Care Recovery Programme. This item
would remain on the tracker and be included in the progress report
to the meeting of the Committee in January 2016.
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·
The Markets Service Business Plan needed to be validated and there
would be an opportunity at the next meeting of the Committee to ask
service officers questions on the Plan.
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9.4
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In response to a question on the Statutory
Responsibilities Health Check, the Director of Legal and Governance
indicated that the Annual Governance Statement process had been
reviewed and the changes would be fully implemented by April 2016.
This included services confirming their statutory
responsibilities.
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9.5
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Resolved: That the
Committee:-
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(a)
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notes the report;
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(b)
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agrees that the audits relating to the
Adoption Service and Subject Access requests are removed from the
action tracker;
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(c)
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notes that the Director of Capital & Major Projects and Head of
Markets would be attending the next meeting of the Committee and
submitting a report on progress in
implementing the outstanding recommendations from ...
view the full minutes text for item 9.
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10. |
Update on the Finance Service Actions Arising from the KPMG Report on Adult Social Care PDF 111 KB
Report of the Assistant Director of
Finance.
Additional documents:
Minutes:
10.1
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David Phillips, Interim Director of Finance,
introduced a report providing assurance that the issues raised
within the KPMG report “Adult Social Care – Financial
Grip” were being appropriately addressed within the Finance
Service. The report provided an update on the key finance actions
that had been identified relating to:
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Improvements to monthly monitoring and
reporting
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A detailed review of the forecasting
process
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A review of finance business partnering activity
across Communities
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Communications around Communities’ financial
performance
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A review of financial governance
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10.2
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The report also provided an update on the
finance input into a number of other initiatives which would
support and facilitate better financial management within the
Communities Portfolio and across the Council as a whole.
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10.3
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The Interim Director referred to the improved
key performance indicators that had been developed that would
enable management to monitor and control value for money and joint
working with the Clinical Commissioning Group.
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10.4
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Resolved: That the Committee
notes the report.
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11. |
Update on the Adult Social Care Change Programme PDF 56 KB
Report of the Interim
Director of Business Strategy, Communities.
Additional documents:
Minutes:
11.1
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David Phillips, Interim Director of Finance,
introduced a report that provided an update on the Adult Social
Care Change Programme and included the progress to date and the
next steps for each workstream (Information Advice and Carers,
Prevention, Assistive Technology and Equipment, Enablement and
Intermediate Care, Assessment, Support, Planning and Review, Long
Term Care and Enabling workstreams). He stated that Adult Social
Care was not included as a significant control weakness in the
Annual Governance Statement for 2014/15 but that there was further
work to do and this would be undertaken jointly with the health
service. There would be a further progress report to the next
meeting of the Committee.
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11.2
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The Chief Executive suggested that, rather
than providing a generic update, the progress reports should focus
on the risks associated with the service and the actions being
taken to address these. He also stated that the Government had
deferred the introduction of the lifetime cap on care costs in
England until 2020.
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11.3
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In response to a question from the Chair of
the Committee, the Interim Executive Director, Resources indicated
that the circumstances had significantly changed since the original
closed report was considered by this Committee last year. He
outlined the reasons for the delay in making the report publicly
available and that there was a need to publish that report and
focus on what needs to be monitored. The Director of Legal and
Governance added that there were still a number of issues to be
resolved and publication of the report would be discussed with the
Chair of the Committee.
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11.4
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The Director, KPMG commented that their value
for money work this year would focus on the progress on Adult
Social Care and this would be included in the Report to Those
Charged with Governance to be submitted to the next meeting of this
Committee.
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11.5
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Resolved: That the Committee
notes:-
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(a)
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the report and that the update report to be
submitted to the September meeting of the Committee would focus on
the risks associated with the Adult Social Care service and the
actions being taken to address these; and
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(b)
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that consideration was being given by the
Monitoring Officer to publication of the closed report on Adult
Social Care considered by the Committee in July 2014 and this would
be discussed with the Chair of the Committee.
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12. |
Work Programme PDF 93 KB
Report of the Director of Legal and
Governance.
Minutes:
12.1
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The Director of Legal and Governance submitted
a report providing details of the Committee’s draft work
programme to April 2016.
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12.2
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Resolved: That the Committee
approves the work programme with the addition of a progress report
on the Annual Governance Statement to be submitted to the meeting
in January 2016.
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13. |
Dates of Future Meetings
To note that meetings of the Committee will be held
at 6.00 p.m. on:-
·
24 September 2015
·
12 November 2015
·
10 December 2015 (additional meeting if required)
·
14 January 2016
·
11 February 2016 (additional meeting if required)
·
10 March 2016 (additional meeting if required)
·
14 April 2016
·
14 July 2016
Minutes:
13.1
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It was noted that, subject to
consultation with the Committee’s Co-opted Independent
Members, meetings of the Committee would be held at 5.00 p.m. on
the following dates:
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·
24 September 2015
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12 November 2015
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10 December 2015 (additional meeting if required)
·
14 January 2016
·
11 February 2016 (additional meeting if required)
·
10 March 2016 (additional meeting if required)
·
14 April 2016
·
14 July 2016
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