Agenda item

Sue Chandler (Cabinet Member for Integrated Children's Services), Richard Smith (Corporate Director Adult Social Care and Health), Simon Jones (Corporate Director Growth, Environment and Transport), Kevin Kasaven (Director Children’s Countywide Services), Sharon Howard (Area Manager, West Kent), Michelle Vickery (Financial Assessment and Income Manager) and Peter Carey (Income Manager) were in attendance for this item.

1.    The Head of Internal Audit introduced the report which detailed the summaries of completed Audit reports for the period May – August 2023. The Head of Internal Audit provided a brief overview of each summary. It was highlighted that the summaries in Appendix A included the highest proportion of Limited Assurances in an Internal Audit Progress report since at least 2019. There were five ‘Limited’, three ‘Adequate’ and two ‘Substantial’ assurance reports. In relation to ‘CA10-2023 – LATCO Governance Arrangements’, it was highlighted that the Gen2 lessons learned report had not yet been received by the Governance and Audit Committee. Members were told that, given the status of the Council’s financial arrangements, the findings of the ‘RB17-2023 - Compliance with Financial Regulations’ should be a major concern.

2.    In response to questions and comments from Members it was said that:

a)    In relation to ‘CS05-2023 - Social Care Debt Recovery’, the overall outstanding debt was £42.3m, with £7.9m secured. The debt recovery process had been improved in line with Section 69 of the Care Act and statutory guidance. Following a restructure there would also be Income Recovery Officers specifically working to improve the levels of debt. The Income Manager would provide the overdue social care debtor numbers outside of the meeting. It was confirmed that other local authorities were experiencing similar challenges in relation to social care debt recovery.

b)    Members requested that ‘Spending the Council’s Money’ be reviewed in response to the findings of the ‘RB16-2023 – Data Quality – LAS System – Risk of Overpayments’ audit. Members were assured by the Director of Children’s Countywide Services and the Area Manager that the service were taking the appropriate actions in response to the audit findings, including liaising with Commissioning and Finance colleagues. It was said that this was not a system-wide issue. Instead, it was an isolated incident that arose due to the change in portfolio holder. The Director Finance confirmed that an annual review was carried out on all the Council’s payment controls and a report could be provided to the Committee on these wider controls.

c)    In relation to ‘RB24-2023 - Property Disposals’, the Committee was reminded that non-Executive Members were only entitled to information that was necessary for effective scrutiny of decisions. The General Counsel would meet with the Director of Infrastructure to establish whether a register of property disposals could be provided to the Committee for assurance purposes, within the bounds of the local government transparency code 2015.

d)    It was confirmed that the action plan for improvement in response to ‘RB17-2023 – Compliance with Financial Regulations’ included the delivery of bitesize workshops on the Financial Regulations and a more robust induction training provision following restructures. The General Counsel reminded Members that work was also being undertaken as part of the Annual Governance Statement 2021-22 actions to ensure widespread understanding of the Council’s written governance.

3.    It was agreed that the discussion and management response to the ‘RB21-2023 - Contract Extensions’ and ‘CA07-2023 – Procurement’ audits would be deferred to the October meeting due to technical difficulties.

4.    RESOLVED to note the Internal Audit Progress Report for the period May to August 2023.