Agenda and minutes

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Contact: Priya Patel  01344 352233

Items
No. Item

38.

Declarations of Interest

Members are requested to declare any Personal Interests. Any Member with a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest in a matter should withdraw from the meeting when the matter is under consideration and should notify the Democratic Services Officer in attendance that they are withdrawing as they have such an interest. If the Disclosable Pecuniary Interest is not entered on the register of Members interests the Monitoring Officer must be notified of the interest within 28 days.

Minutes:

There were no declarations on interest.

39.

Minutes from Previous Meeting pdf icon PDF 93 KB

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 29 January 2013.

Minutes:

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting held on 29 January 2013 be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

40.

Urgent Items of Business

Any other items which, pursuant to Section 100B(4)(b) of the Local Government Act 1972, the Chairman decides are urgent.

Minutes:

There were no items of urgent business.

41.

External Audit Matters pdf icon PDF 59 KB

The Committee is asked to note the External Audit Plan for 2012/13 and to note the Annual Audit Fee for 2013/14.

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Committee considered the External Audit Plan for 2012/13 and the Annual Audit Fee for 2013/14.

 

Catherine Morganti, Manager at Ernst and Young presented the report and made the following points:

 

  • There would be two main strands to the External Audit Plan for 2012/13;

 

i)                    an audit opinion on whether financial statements of Bracknell Forest Council gave a true and fair view of the financial position as at 31 March 2013 and of the income and expenditure for the year then ended.

ii)                   and a statutory conclusion on the Council’s arrangements to secure economy, efficiency and effectiveness.

 

Mrs Morganti reported that she could see improvements planned at the Council including the regeneration of the town centre, these items had been retained in the Audit Plan to see how improvements were bedding in.

 

She reported that the fee for 2013/14 had been set by the Audit Commission as part of that procurement exercise and would not increase unless there was a change in the scope of the external auditor’s work. The total Code audit fee for 2013/14 was £138,564.

 

It was RESOLVED that the Committee;

 

i)                    noted the External Audit Plan for 2012/13 and

ii)                   noted the Annual Audit Fee for 2013/14.   

42.

Internal Audit Plan 2013/14 pdf icon PDF 171 KB

The purpose of this report is to set out the underlying principles applied in the Internal Audit planning process and seek the Governance and Audit Committee’s approval of the Internal Audit Plan for 2013/14.

 

Minutes:

The Committee considered a report that set out the underlying principles applied in the Internal Audit planning process and sought the Committee’s approval of the Internal Audit Plan for 2013/14.

 

It was reported that:

 

  • A rigorous approach was taken to risk assessing processes each year, a key element of this included consulting with senior officers across the Council on a one to one basis as well as consulting with IT. Provisional plans would then be set out and submitted to departmental management teams before being submitted to the Corporate Management Team.
  • It was key that limited resources were directed to the areas of greatest risk.
  • It was reported that new internal audit public sector standards applied as of the end of April 2013. CIPFA had produced a checklist which would help the Council ensure that they were compliant.

 

In response to members’ queries, the following points were made:

 

·         In relation to car parks as detailed on page 38 of the agenda papers, the Committee asked if further attention could be given to recent fraudulent activity around false parking tickets being used to fraudulently collect money. Officers agreed to look into this further and investigate all areas of potential fraud where the Council collected money.

·         In relation to the Council wide absence management audit, it was reported that this could be time consuming work as it required sample checking across the Council, this would include staff flexi cards and checking annual leave. Whilst Payroll could provide a range of information, they did not hold absence information.

·         Members commented that there was not sufficient explanation of the process by which risks were being chosen to be audited, a strategy was necessary. In addition, it was not clear whether new risks were being identified, there was a reliance on the information in the risk register. Members also commented that risks needed to be related to strategic objectives and that the Council wide audits and the IT audit did not appear to relate to strategic objectives.

·         It was reported that risk management processes were reviewed on a regular basis; a review had not been carried out this year as this had been done in previous years. In terms of identifying new risks this was considered throughout the Audit Plan at both an operational and strategic level.

·         Members commented that there was no visibility of the process or rationale used to compile the Audit Plan and that this needed to be clearer. In addition, whilst Appendix B of the agenda papers detailed strategic risks, it was silent on any other risks.

·         It was reported that the Committee had been presented with the ‘end product’ and that more detail of the process could be included.

·         It was noted that the Community Infrastructure Levy needed to be included in the scope of the risk register, it was agreed that this would be added to the ‘forward look’. 

43.

Date of Next Meeting

2 July 2013

Minutes:

2 July 2013.

 

Contact Information

Democratic services

Email: committee@bracknell-forest.gov.uk