To consider the Internal Audit work undertaken and the assurance given on the adequacy of internal controls operating in the systems audited.

23.1           The report of the Corporate Services Group Manager, circulated at Pages No. 164-185, was the first monitoring report of the financial year and summarised the work undertaken by the Internal Audit team during the period April to August 2016.  Members were asked to consider the adequacy of the internal controls operating in the systems audited.

23.2           Members were advised that full details of the work undertaken were attached at Appendix 1 to the report.  A satisfactory level of assurance had been found in the audit of the Public Services Network (PSN); whilst the Council’s code of compliance had been appropriately signed off, there were a number of ICT policies and procedures supporting the PSN which required reviewing and updating and it had been recommended that testing of the Security Incident Management Plan be carried out.  A previous audit of tree inspections had highlighted an unsatisfactory level of control which had acted as a catalyst for an overhaul of the whole process.  The Asset Manager had taken on responsibility for tree maintenance and new technology had been purchased which allowed Officers to enter information into a handheld device and upload it directly to the system.  However, it was noted that a limited opinion had been issued in relation to the audit of the previous regime as 191 of the 672 trees inspected were not formally owned by Tewkesbury Borough Council.  The Asset Manager reiterated that he had taken on responsibility for tree maintenance in winter 2015 and Ubico carried out the inspections between October and March.  As Ubico carried out grass cutting on behalf of the Council and had knowledge of the Borough, it had been wrongly assumed that the operatives also knew which trees were owned by the Council.  Unfortunately there had been a lot of changes historically and there were areas which the Council did not currently own but were intended for adoption by the local authority following development, for example, the housing estate in Mitton which, although maintained by the Council, had never been formally adopted.  It was necessary to undertake some additional work to review the unadopted areas and the outcomes to resolve the issues would be presented to Members in a further report.  In terms of the new procedure for inspections, trees were allocated zones from one to five, with zone one being trees in high traffic areas – and therefore high risk - and zone five being trees in densely wooded areas.  Officers had visited and categorised the sites in June and Ubico had been instructed where to carry out work on behalf of the Council.  In response to a query, the Asset Manager explained that tree inspections were not carried out in the summer months, although there could be ad-hoc reports from the public which were logged by Customer Services and reported to Ubico through the software system.  All dialogue was via the software system and all plotting was carried out on the hardware system which was able to plot trees to within 10cm.  A Member queried whether the people who were responsible for the trees which had been identified as not being owned by the Council had been notified that they would no longer be maintained.  The Asset Manager advised that this was a bit of a grey area, for instance, in Mitton there was no registered owner for the sites where the trees were located and a reluctance to take ownership. A Member went on to question whether the trees being allocated to new zones would mean that Ubico would have less work to do as trees which would have been inspected every year would now be inspected every five years.  Members were advised that, when the original Tree Policy had been agreed, the idea was that high risk trees would be inspected first; in practice all trees had been inspected annually, however, there were not enough resources to continue to do this.  It was estimated that there were around 5,000 trees within the Council’s ownership, and only one person carrying out inspections between October and March, so the policy had been adapted to ensure that the Council was able to meet its requirements.  The Member questioned whether there were less issues with the trees being inspected now that a proper regime was in place and the Asset Manager explained that, unfortunately, that was not the case.  Four trees had needed to be felled completely during winter 2015/16 and any trees which had been found to be diseased had been inputted into an additional regime so that they would be re-inspected.

23.3           Members were informed that the Property team had completely revitalised the inspection of playgrounds as a result of an adverse audit opinion a few years earlier.  The latest audit had confirmed that there was a satisfactory level of assurance.  Only playgrounds owned by the Council were inspected and this was overseen by Environmental Health where staff had been fully trained.  Importantly, any defects identified were being resolved promptly.  A satisfactory level of control had also been found in relation to the audit of the Tell Us Once system which people could use to report deaths to several government organisations at once.  Notifications were processed accurately and promptly by the correct people and there were adequate controls over access to the system.

23.4           Members were informed that two limited level opinions had been issued during the audit of the bulky waste collection service.  The first related to the regular review of fees; there had been no formal review of fees since 2011 and the current structure did not support the Council’s new commercial approach.  The second control objective related to the customer booking process.  Whilst the functionality of the database was adequate for the purpose of recording collection details, it did not provide for refund history on the customer account or show availability of next collection slot times prior to ordering the collection.  The anticipated service delivery was 10 working days, however, in some geographical areas customers were waiting seven weeks before collections.  Remedial action had been taken to make the system more effective from 1 October 2016 through maximising efficiency of timeslots and this needed to be monitored going forward.  A Member questioned whether Ubico helped with collections and was advised that the Council booked the collections but it was a Ubico vehicle which physically made the collection; it was noted that Ubico had provided a ‘man with a van’ to help with collections but this was an interim solution pending procurement of the Council’s new waste vehicle fleet.  A Member raised concern that there seemed to be a lot of issues arising from Ubico taking over services which the Council had previously carried out, for example, street cleansing, grass cutting etc. and that could be damaging to the Council’s high customer satisfaction rate in such areas.  The Corporate Services Group Manager confirmed that a further report would be brought to Members in respect of bulky waste collection given that a limited opinion had been issued.  In terms of the other services, an audit of trade waste had also resulted in a limited opinion which had previously been reported to the Committee and his team was currently carrying out some work on the monitoring of the Ubico contract so it would be interesting to see what opinion was issued in that respect.  A Member questioned whether there had been an increase in fly-tipping, given the seven week waiting list for collections, and was advised that enviro-crimes, particularly fly-tipping, had been discussed at length by the Overview and Scrutiny Committee.  Although it was not clear whether there was a correlation between the waiting list and fly-tipping incidents, the number of reported enviro-crimes was increasing and consideration was currently being given as to how to address this.  It was noted that a report would shortly be taken to the Executive Committee recommending the appointment of an Environmental Warden.

23.5           With regard to the audit of ICT environmental controls, Members were informed that there had been a satisfactory level of assurance in relation to all of the control objectives.  It was noted that a lot of work had been carried out in respect of business continuity and the controls around fire and water risk.  One issue which had been identified related to access to the building; all staff working within the Public Services Centre currently had access to all areas of the building between the hours of 9:00am and 5:00pm, with the exception of the ICT server room and the Police offices.  Although only a small number of staff regularly accessed the areas occupied by partner organisations through integrated working, there was a need for wider awareness of this arrangement in order to manage the security and data protection risks associated with open access to the building. An audit of the new Community Support Grants Scheme had been carried out and had confirmed that it had been appropriately approved by the Executive Committee.  Applications were appropriately authorised or rejected by the Grants Working Group according to the criteria of the scheme and successful applications had been paid accurately.  In terms of the monitoring of the scheme, this had been identified as having a satisfactory level of assurance as a reconciliation of the monitoring spreadsheet and general ledger was not currently documented and it was recommended that the process be amended accordingly.  With regard to corporate improvement work, the Internal Audit Team had been asked to carry out benchmarking as part of the Planning Services review and this had included service cost, processing times, team structures and staffing numbers. 

23.6           Members were advised that a list of audits within the 2016/17 Audit Plan, and their progress to date, could be found at Appendix 2 to the report.  Appendix 3 to the report contained a summary of all audit recommendations and their status; a small number had been followed-up and implemented and they were flagged within the report.  Of the remaining audits, none had passed their target dates for follow-up.  It was intended to arrange a small informal workshop for Audit Committee Members around the work carried out by the Internal Audit team to ensure that they were being provided with the information which they required.

23.7           Having considered the information provided, it was

RESOLVED          That the Internal Audit Plan Monitoring Report be NOTED.