Agenda item

To consider the completed Serious and Organised Crime Checklist and the action plan arising from the checklist.

35.1          The report of the Head of Corporate Services, circulated at Pages No. 33-54, asked Members to consider the completed Serious and Organised Crime Checklist and the action plan arising from the checklist.

35.2          The Head of Corporate Services explained that public sector procurement was vulnerable to infiltration from serious and organised crime groups as there were multiple opportunities for exploitation.  In order to better understand the nature and scale of the threat in England, joint pilot work had been undertaken by local authorities and police forces in seven areas and, as a result, ten links had been identified between publicly procured services and organised crime.  One of the actions identified to help tackle this threat and reduce vulnerability was using the Serious and Organised Crime Checklist which enabled authorities to assess the risks within their organisations.  The checklist for Tewkesbury Borough, attached at Appendix 1 to the report, asked a number of key questions and had been completed by Senior Officers across various services together with the Counter Fraud Unit.  One area identified as needing improvement related to general awareness training for staff involved in purchasing and this was included in the arising action plan, attached at Appendix 2 to the report. 

35.3          Members were advised that Appendix 3 to the report set out a framework for an audit on serious organised crime and covered areas such as procurement, Human Resources and good governance.  The Internal Audit Team and Counter Fraud Unit would review these activities and a number of days had been allocated in their respective work plans to commence this work.  As with all audit work, the findings would be reported to the Audit Committee.  A Member queried how many days had been allocated for the audit and whether there was adequate time to carry out the work.  The Head of Corporate Services advised that Page No. 48 of the report set out the areas the Internal Audit Team was concentrating on and he confirmed that 15 days had been allocated within the current Six Month Audit Plan; these were mainly around Human Resources activities with the remainder of actions being covered over the course of three or four Audit Plans through joint working with the Counter Fraud Unit.

35.4           With regard to the Serious and Organised Crime Action Plan, a Member noted that this centred around things which could occur within the authority and he questioned the extent to which the Council was involved in fraudulent activity outside, for example within small businesses, and whether any work was done with Trading Standards.  The Counter Fraud Unit Manager confirmed that the Counter Fraud Unit had a Memorandum of Understanding with Trading Standards.  She made reference to a case involving modern slavery which was linked to a planning  issue, where a large number of caravans were located on a site, which highlighted the importance of raising awareness with staff, particularly those who were frequently out on site - such as Planning Enforcement, Environmental Health and Housing Officers - so they were able to recognise potential issues and refer them accordingly.  

35.5           Having considered the information provided, it was

RESOLVED          That the completed Serious and Organised Crime Checklist and the arising action plan be NOTED.