Agenda and draft minutes

The Chair asked the Committee to spare a moment of reflection of another young life being taken by knife crime in the Borough and for all present to think if there is anything everyone could do to help save lives from knives.

To note any substitution of Committee members made in accordance with Council Procedure Rules.

There were no apologies or substitutions

To confirm as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting held on 30 January 2025 (previously circulated).

The minutes of the meeting of the meeting held on 30 January 2025 were approved as an accurate record

No notifications for urgent business were received.

To note declarations of Members’ disclosable pecuniary interests, non-disclosable pecuniary interests and non-pecuniary interests in respect of items on this agenda.

No Declarations of Interest were received.

Report of the Executive Director (Finance and Transformation)

The Committee received the Risk Management Quarter 3 Risk Register presenting the current identified strategic risks facing the Council, and those operational risks assessed as having a residual risk level of serious or severe (those with a score of 10 or more) as previously present to Cabinet. The report is an assessment of risk as at 31 December 2024.

The Executive Director (Finance & Transportation) highlighted the government's intention around devolution and local government reorganisation in two-tier areas. Consideration was given to the early impacts and the potential risks and implications including staff recruitment and retention. Also, the financial risks, there is a duty to continue to balance budgets and maintain adequate reserves in advance of any decisions on LGR and the multi-year settlement may be impacted by the government’s plans.

During the discussion the following points were raised:

·         A member mentioned a contractual dispute with the main contractor for council house maintenance under strategic risks, and asked if there was an update on the dispute.

·         The Executive Director (Finance & Transportation) responded that he did not have that information to hand but will arrange to circulate this to Members.

ACTION – To circulate a response regarding an update on the dispute

·      The Independent Person asked if there are any significant points of failure that could adversely affect operations of the Council, given the events at Heathrow recently and if so what will the Council do about them.

·         The Executive Director (Finance & Transportation) responded that for those sorts of events there are three key plans that would have an impact on how we respond. The first is the business continuity plans. The Council has an overarching plan and then individual service plans which identify the key services that need to be kept running, the priority that things will be brought back in and the time frames that are needed to bring things back in.  There is also a disaster recovery plan which looks at how IT services will be brought back on from backups in the event of an incident or loss or server room. There is also the emergency plan which looks at bigger emergency incidents.  All have been used in real life scenarios, i.e. the business continuity plans were used for our response to the pandemic lockdown initially. Also, when there was an ICT incident last year with our VPN and firewall.

·         The Independent Person commented that the incident at Heathrow was dubbed a once in 30 years event and was high impact but low probability. He asked if officers were confident that they are on top of the low probability but high impact events.

·         The Executive Director (Finance & Transportation) responded that one of the key considerations is looking at residual risk or the inherent risk and the change between the two. I.e. There are a number of high impact and medium to high probability inherent risks where through controls the level of probability has been brought down. But there are some instances where the level of impact will say  ...  view the full minutes text for item 77.

Members received the Internal Audit Progress Report detailing progress made by the Shared Internal Audit Service (SIAS) in delivering the Council’s Annual Internal Audit Plan for 2024/2025 as at 3 March 2025. The report proposed amendments to the approved 2024/2025 Internal Audit Plan and gave an update on performance indicators as at 3 March 2025.

During the discussion the following points were raised:

·         A Member asked a question regarding Appendix  B looking at Q3, there’s a couple of reports that haven’t been drafted yet namely the Statutory Compliance and Tenancy Audits which are important ones and whether they are two of the ones that SIAS are still waiting for.

·         The SIAS Officer responded that the Tenancy Audit has already been issued in draft so that has been moved, and the Statutory Compliance was received this afternoon for quality review, so both of those audits will be included in this current year.

·         A Member asked what would happen if you they didn’t complete by 31^st March and whether it was just a case of being embarrassing or whether there was more jeopardy than that.

·         The SIAS Officer responded that it was more embarrassing than anything else. It’s a target set by the board and the most important thing is our ability  to provide that annual assurance opinion at the next committee because that gives the overview.

RESOLVED:

Members noted the report.

Members received the Internal Audit Plan 2025/26 setting out the programme of work for the year ahead and forms part of the Council’s wider assurance framework.  

During the discussion the following points were raised:

·         A Member asked a question regarding the table on 2.14 of the summary of the work programme, whether the percentage proportion is comparable to last year. He also asked if there are new audits that might be introduced as a result of local governance of whether it was too soon.

·         The SIAS Officer responded with regard the table at 2.14 and the summary of the work programme that it is comparable. In terms of the reorganisation, it’s too early. It was discussed with Senior officers as part of their planning discussions. The plan is meant to be flexible so if something comes up they can reassess and risk score things to see what can be moved around.

·         The Independent Person asked a question regarding Appendix C. There’s one strategic severe residual risk which doesn’t appear to have ever been audited and still doesn’t appear to be in the plan this year and there’s a couple in the next category down. He asked why such a severe risk has never been audited and whether there should be a reprioritisation to make it more of a priority.

·         The SIAS Officer responded that there are a number of risks for WHBC in the plan and they wouldn’t be able to cover everything. Through discussions with officers, they look at where the work is going to be most useful. Also, what they are doing through their assurance mapping of the risk is looking at other sources of assurance so they can mitigate that through those. In terms of the non-housing property assets, there is the use of external consultants that they are aware of and that’s why they haven’t necessarily looked to do that. However, if there are areas the committee feel should be looked at, that’s a discussion they can have with senior management. 

·         The Executive Director (Finance & Transportation) added that there has been some focus work done on non-council and non-housing property assets. Whilst it has not been audited as a whole, there has been an audit for example on fire safety and things like that so there are some audits that link to that risk.

·         The Independent Person responded that it would be good to bring those out in the paper just to show that they are properly being covered.

·         A Member had a question around procedure and how it would work if Members did feel something should be reprioritised.

·         The Executive Director (Finance & Transportation) recommended that in any scenario like this, if Members make their thoughts known, we can take it away and have a look at what controls we’ve got in place, what measures, what potential audit would cover and then bring back to the following committee to look at the plan.

·         Members requested to document that officers in conjunction with the auditors will review  ...  view the full minutes text for item 79.

Members received the progress report on Anti-Fraud Plan 2024/25 which detailed the work undertaken by the Shared Anti-Fraud Services (SAFS) and Council Officers to protect the Council against the threat of fraud and delivery of the Council’s Anti-Fraud Plan for 2024/25.  

During the discussion the following points were raised:

·         The Chair commented that it was a job well done, a lot of money had been saved, and they were clearly doing some excellent work.

·         A Member asked a question around paragraph 11 in the report regarding alternatives to prosecutions and which cases were appropriate for a lighter hand and what happens in those circumstances.

·         The SAFS Officer responded that they have to make sure that prosecution is appropriate because that’s the most severe outcome. The Council has a number of options dependent on the service area impacted, i.e. council house stock, when recovering properties that have been misused, if they have been sublet, we might want to recover the property, so that’s a sanction, actually bringing that property back into stock, terminating the person’s tenancy. We may look for what’s called an unlawful profit order, i.e. if the tenant’s made a profit from subletting that property, then we want that money from that person because they’ve made a profit from our asset. If the offence is serious enough, i.e. if they committed an offence under the Fraud Act or the Prevention of Social Housing Fraud Act, we could seek prosecution. There are a number of other options as well, i.e. a local authority caution which is something like a police caution where it will go on record that they’ve committed an offence, but it won’t proceed to prosecution. There is also the issue of a seek and desist notice, where we suspect somebody may have been sublet but we can’t prove this and going to court might be expensive or time consuming. We can issue this notice where we tell somebody to stop subletting and bring the property back into use.  With regards council tax there is some fairly draconian legislation where fines and penalties can be imposed if people try to defraud the council tax system, they can choose to accept and pay the money back and that will be it. This is a better outcome than prosecution as that can be expensive and a delay in resolution. Ultimately we are looking to recover money that the Council is losing.

·         A Member asked with regard to Paragraph 18 in the report, what the cabinet office third data sets are.

·         The SAFS Officer responded  that with the National Fraud Initiative it’s run every two years, it’s a mandated exercise provided by Cabinet Office who use an external IT provider to take from the council, from this authority, the tenants data, housing waiting list data, payroll data, council tax, parking data, creditors data and probably three or four other data sets on the last working day of October. It is then uploaded to the NFI Cabinet Office portal. Every council across  ...  view the full minutes text for item 80.

Members received a report providing members with an introduction to the Council’s Anti-Fraud Plan for 2025/26.

During the discussion the following points were raised:

·         A Member commented, a 4% increase in fees but a 20% increase in days, that’s the kind of figures we like and congratulated officers in their negotiations.

·         Member asked if there was anything unique in this plan that would differ elsewhere or whether it is stereotypical of any authority.

·         The SAFS Officer responded that there are different client types and particular risks with different types of authorities. I.e. Welhat has more stock that Broxbourne so there is a difference. Welhat will have more control over temporary accommodation than Broxbourne but that makes Welhat more likely to be a victim of crime because you have something people want. This is similar to Stevenage who also have stock.

·         A Member commented that one of the benefits of working with SAFS who also work elsewhere is that they can use their experience from other areas.

·         The SAFS Officer responded that this is the real strength of the partnership. Some of the executive reports that are now produced where weaknesses have been identified in one of the partners can be shared with others in the partnership.

·         A Member quoted the National Audit Office saying that fraud and error costs the taxpayer billions of pounds each year, but most of the potential loss goes undetected and asked how they know when something goes undetected.

·         The SAFS Officer described it as an iceberg, i.e. there’s 10% that is known about, what it looks like, when it occurs and can be dealt with, then there’s 20-30% below the tip of the iceberg where there’s an idea about it and mentioned in the data matching. Then the stuff that’s not known about. Some reports come in from members of the public identifying fraud that is wouldn’t have been found.

RESOLVED:

Members approved the Anti-Fraud Plan 2025/26

The Chair commented that this was the last Audit meeting of the council year and thanked Members for their hard work and commitment. He stated it had been a pleasure working with them all and liked the continuity. Having sat in the Chair for the last two years you get to learn more about the role and get a good understanding of what it is all about and especially around the Anti-Fraud work discussed today.

He also suggested that these figures should be published more to WHBC tenants and share what the council is doing in response to fraud.