Agenda item

The External Auditor has produced several reports as part of the 2009/10 Audit which need to be considered and endorsed by the Committee.  The External Auditor will attend the meeting and will present these reports to the Committee.

Phil Sharman, District Auditor introduced the reports.  There were three items relating to the 2009/2010 Audit, and his assistant, Catherine Morganti, spoke to the first two. She told the Committee that the report related to Certification of Claims and Returns, which the Audit Commission required the external auditors to report to this committee.  Most of the work was on claims over £0.5m.  There was prescribed testing for the high risk area of Housing and Council Tax benefits, and she drew attention to two particular items where data had been entered incorrectly.  This was human error, and it was the responsibility of the report to draw attention to this fact, and for this to be put right and validated in future.  It was hoped that in future the audit for this area would be more straightforward.

Catherine Morganti then drew attention to the fact that the Council was changing its revenues and benefit system in October 2010, and there were complications arising from both changing the system and the timing of the change. There would be high reliance on the internal audit team.  It was not possible to change the timing of this exercise, and October was seen as the optimal time for the change.

The District Auditor moved on to the Data Quality report.  This was a sub-section of the External Auditors’ work.  Some indicators had been test checked in depth to see how well they were working and how good the arrangements were, and the outcomes of these were noted in the report.  The District Auditor recommended that the Council roll out the new data quality strategy, ensuring as part of this that staff understood the processes necessary to achieve data quality.

The District Auditor then spoke to the report of the detailed findings of the audit, explaining that five of the National Indicators had been examined in depth.  His findings were given in the report.  He had found some indicators were adequate, while others were not.  Under NI 135 which dealt with Carer assessment, there were inadequate arrangements, but a new indicator was being implemented, and this problem should not arise again.  He reiterated that data from external sources should be checked for reasonableness.  He told the Committee that responsibility for datasets used in decision-making rested with the Council.  Andrea Durn, Head of Performance and Partnerships told the Committee that the Council did have a data quality strategy which in future would require third party providers of data to sign off that their data was correct.  Training was currently being rolled out to officers, members and partners to ensure reasonableness of data.

The Committee agreed that if data were to be used for decision making, it needed to be fit for purpose and accurate.

In response to questions the District Auditor indicated that there was a clear definition set for each of the National Indicators, with a set procedure for testing each one.  He assured the Committee that the auditors would draw extensively in future from the 35 national indicators chosen by the Council for its Local Area Agreement.

The District Auditor then moved to the Audit Opinion Plan.  This set out intentions proposed for the audit of financial statements for 2009/2010.  It also communicated the identified audit risks and proposed procedures to the Governance and Audit Committee as required by International Auditing Standards covering auditor communications with those charged with governance. The fee letter of 2 April 2009 had set out an outline of the work required to assess the achievement of value for money in the use of resources.  He told the meeting that his fee remained the same as originally indicated.  He had identified some specific risks, which included the changes in the accountancy section, which would be closely monitored.  The joint waste Private Finance Initiative (PFI) which may mean bringing joint assets into the Bracknell Forest Council accounts, was not straightforward, and changes made to the statement of recommended practice which dealt with the non-domestic rate and Council Tax needed to be implemented.

Overall this report gave broad terms for the shape of the audit, and would also look at how the new internal audit contractor arrangements were working.  The audit would be reported to the Committee at its meeting on 21 September, and it was planned to highlight value for money and use of resources.

RESOLVED that the recommendations in the External Auditors reports on Audit of Grant Claims Annual Report, Audit Opinion Plan 2009/10 and the Audit Report on Data Quality be noted.