Agenda item

This report gives Members a summary of the internal audit work completed by the East Kent Audit Partnership since the last Governance and Audit Committee meeting, together with details of the performance of the EKAP to the 30^th September 2013.

There have been ten internal audit assignments completed during the period. Of these four concluded Substantial assurance and four concluded Reasonable assurance. An additional piece of work that had been carried out was for EK Services-Housing Benefit Quarterly Testing (Qtr 2 of 2013-14) which did not require an assurance level. The assurance level given for Public Health Burials was Limited and Members had concerns about this.

 The EKAP had carried out a comparison exercise with two neighbouring authorities to look at the number of public health burials that have been carried out over the last 2 complete financial years.

  This shows that Thanet District Council has carried out a significantly greater number of public health burials in comparison to the other two. Although Thanet District Council has more deprived wards coupled with a more transient population, these figures are significantly higher than the neighbouring authorities. There is a concern that the authority has been paying for funerals even though next of kin are known or have appeared at the funeral and processes to recover monies have not been carried out. Again, these findings are similar to those reported previously by Internal Audit. 

It was noted that at a neighbouring authority it is the Finance team that are responsible for the collection of any monies owed from a public health burial. This method of working could be considered as the lack of resources within Environmental Health means that there could be considerable delays in obtaining any monies. There would then also be a separation between the legislative actions of the public health burials and the financial reclaim of any outstanding monies owed to the authority. 

At the time of the last audit in this area, it was recommended that ‘As a short term measure, all Public Health Burial case files should be reviewed and signed off by the Environmental Protection Manager until there is a demonstrable improvement in the quality of documentation. Thereafter, it would be advisable for a random sample of files to be examined periodically’. Whilst this recommendation was accepted, it has not resulted in an adequate degree of improvement and accordingly greater management supervision in this area still appears to be warranted.

Members asked for an explanation as to why the Council were not so good at recovering costs and whether this was solely down to resources.

Harvey Patterson, Corporate and Regulatory Services Manager, in response said that in 2008 no assurance was given and no processes were in place. He added that a lot of key controls were now in place and that the officer who had been on long term sick leave was in a ‘return to work programme’ and the Environmental Health Manager was working with the officer to ensure processes were followed.

Penny Button added that there were costs involved in recovery but that over the last 4 to 5 months invoices were now being sent and more steps were being taken to locate relatives and recover costs. It was noted that the additional numbers of public burials in Thanet was partly due to the hospice. Members agreed with the recommendation of the EKAP that the responsibility for collecting monies was in the Finance Team. Penny advised that they do go through the Finance system.

Building Control received Substantial Assurance and some Members queried why the target for the service was to ‘break even’. Sarah Martin, Financial Services Manager and deputy s151 officer said that it was a legal requirement and that this service was not allowed to make a profit. Harvey Patterson added that it was the responsibility of Building Control to ensure that buildings were built in accordance with the regulations and that completion certificates were only provided once all monies had been paid and they were satisfied that the regulations had been complied with.

Child Protection had received Reasonable Assurance and some Members had concerns regarding the level of staff having completed the training. As part of the staff induction process staff must complete the e-learning module on child protection. However, a report supplied by EK Human Resources showed that only 74 staff had completed the e-learning module equating to just 15.4% of the staff employed. Simon Webb, Deputy Head of EKAP said that he had intended to give Members an update as a different e-learning system was now in use that doesn’t include child protection.

It was confirmed that all relevant staff have undertaken a Disclosure and Barring Service check (previously called CRB).

Service Contract and Monitoring had also received Reasonable Assurance and Members asked whether the contracts receiving Reasonable or Limited could be identified. Simon Webb said that they were all at least Reasonable and that the audit had specifically selected those that weren’t covered by other audits.

In referring to the Balanced Scorecard for Quarter 2 Members asked whether the Audit team were on schedule. Christine Parker, Head of EKAP advised Members that they were on schedule for completion and with a qualified new member of the team this would ensure an expected 98% completion.

Moved by Councillor Campbell and seconded by Councillor D Saunders that:

“6.1 the report be received by Members and

6.2  That any changes to the agreed 2013-14 internal audit plans, resulting  from changes in perceived risk, detailed at point 5.0 of the attached report be approved”

MOTION ADOPTED.