Agenda item

(a)       That the report be noted;

(b)       That a report be made to the July 2012 meeting with a draft new format for consideration;

(c)        That the Audit Committee recommend that Cabinet consider the level it wishes to be involved in the use of consultants; and

(d)       That a report be made back to the Audit Committee including more detail on the constraints for the appointment and on the remit and monitoring of consultants to help give assurance that proper procedures are in place.

The Internal Audit Manager introduced a report to inform Members of progress against the operational plans for 2011/12 and 2012/13.

The Internal Audit Manager explained that as part of recommendation tracking, managers were consulted to check that actions had been completed within the agreed timescale.  If actions remained uncompleted at that time, a subsequent implementation date was set.

The Democracy & Governance Manager suggested that the report for which an interest had been declared by Councillor G.S. Banks could be discussed first whilst he was not present and that he would be invited back for discussion on the remainder of the report.  Councillor Banks was not present whilst the procurement report was considered.

On the Procurement Action Plan, Councillor R.B. Jones asked for clarification on a revised implementation date and the Internal Audit Manager explained that the action had been completed ahead of the original target date.

Following earlier comments made by the Chair on the need to revisit employee appraisals, the Internal Audit Manager confirmed that tracking of the action set out in the recommendation.

Mr. P. Green of RSM Tenon asked if Members wished to give consideration to future content of the Audit Report Follow-up and Action Plans, suggesting that this could be reported by numerical tracking and listing exception items to enable the Committee to concentrate on those which had gone beyond the target date.  The Democracy & Governance Manager shared this view and said there was a danger of issues being missed if there was too much paperwork.  Councillor I.B. Roberts agreed with this suggestion.

Councillor Jones asked for clarification on the content of future reports and following a suggestion made by the Chair, it was agreed that the Internal Audit Manager would provide a sample of the new format to compare with the old format to the next meeting of the Committee in July 2012.  If this was then agreed by the Committee, the new format would be used for reporting to the September 2012 meeting.  The Democracy & Governance Manager added that if Members required more detail on a particular issue, this could be made available by Internal Audit.

On the column entitled Management Comment/Progress, Mr. P. Williams asked if Internal Audit measured outcomes.  The Internal Audit Manager replied that these were management assurances on actions taken.  Follow-up audits were completed for some areas, but not all.  Mr. Williams suggested that the Internal Audit Manager could incorporate a few lines into future reports detailing his main concerns for the Committee to focus on.

Following a question by Councillor Jones on the Risk Management Action Plan, the Head of Legal & Democratic Services confirmed that Service Plans were available but said there was no consistency to the documenting of operational risk registers across the Authority to show how risks were being managed.  The Corporate Management Team had considered options and the agreed template would be used as per the recommendation.  The Internal Audit Manager pointed out that an example of the operational risk template was shown in Appendix 1 to the Risk Management report.

In response to a query by Councillor Jones on the need for action plans to be more specific and include details of the responsible officer, the Internal Audit Manager said that this information could be included if Members wished, however this was also stated on the final report.  On the reference in the report to Contract Procedure Rules (CPR) not being detailed, it was explained that an initial delay had been caused by CPR being reviewed nationally and that Flintshire CPR were due to be updated by 1 October 2012.

On the use of consultants action plan, Councillor Jones sought clarification on the ‘interim control mechanism for the engagement of consultants’ agreed at CMT and the Thomson Classification system for the use of suppliers.

The Head of Legal & Democratic Services explained that a process was in place for engaging consultants, signed off by Heads of Services, which was controlled centrally by the Head of ICT & Customer Services to ensure that the use of consultants was documented and used appropriately.  Councillor Roberts raised concern at the lack of Member involvement at the signing off stage and suggested that this should be the relevant Cabinet Member.  The Head of Legal & Democratic Services suggested that Member involvement at a specified financial level may be more appropriate.

The Chair stressed the requirement to ensure that there was a clear remit for what consultants were expected to deliver.  Councillor Roberts remarked that the use of consultants had previously been considered by the Committee and suggested Cabinet Member approval for contracts above a specified limit.  He also felt that success criteria should apply and to take into consideration any extensions beyond the set date of the appointment.

The Head of Legal & Democratic Services spoke about the usefulness of consultants which could be cost-effective to the organisation, and that the issue here was about the control of their use.  He said that if Members wished to pursue the suggestion for Member involvement, the Audit Committee could recommend that Cabinet Members consider the financial level at which they wished to be involved in the engagement of consultants.  Members agreed that officers could raise this with Cabinet and report back to the Audit Committee.

RESOLVED:

(a)       That the report be noted;

(b)       That a report be made to the July 2012 meeting with a draft new format for consideration;

(c)        That the Audit Committee recommend that Cabinet consider the level it wishes to be involved in the use of consultants; and

(d)       That a report be made back to the Audit Committee including more detail on the constraints for the appointment and on the remit and monitoring of consultants to help give assurance that proper procedures are in place.