To consider any matters arising from the previous meeting.
Minutes:
The Assistant Director of Finance & ICT (Benefits) provided a progress report on the implementation of the recommendations made in the Housing & Council Tax Benefits audit report, considered at the Committee’s last meeting.
The Assistant Director reported that the section had not been performing sufficient checking of new claims as claim payments were being prioritised over claim checking. The section was currently complying with the requirement to check 5% of all claims received for accuracy, and the situation was being actively monitored by managers to ensure that all checking was completed. All of the outstanding priority 1 actions from the audit report were now complete.
The Director of Planning & Economic Development provided a progress report on the implementation of the recommendations made in the Planning Fees audit report, considered at the Committee’s last meeting.
The Director reported that the reconciliation of Planning Fees income between the Planning System and the General Ledger was reliant upon three different systems. Cheques were now individually itemised on the General Ledger, which made it easier to reconcile these items. However, the Directorate had insufficient resources to manually reconcile the fees received, and work to interface the systems more efficiently relied upon resources from ICT. It was proposed to submit a report to the Planning Services Scrutiny Panel to review the number of payment options available for residents to pay their Planning Fees.
The Chairman commented that this problem was part of a wider issue; the Council did not have a Corporate Management Information Systems Plan, hence the proliferation of systems across different departments. The Committee needed to have confidence that all Planning Fees had been received and accounted for correctly, but this was currently not possible due to the proliferation of different systems. It was queried whether a thematic review of the Council’s ICT systems could be undertaken by Internal Audit. The Chief Internal Auditor responded that resources would be needed to perform this review and double-check all reconciliations, but that it would be added to the Audit Plan. The Leader of the Council reassured the Committee that the Cabinet would examine the issue and the possible implementation of a Corporate Management Information Systems plan.
The Director added that the income from Planning Fees was in excess of £1million per annum, and the receipt of each fee needed to be confirmed before work commenced on determining the application. The Directorate had been labouring to reconcile all income received against individual applications, due to the complexity of the systems involved in the process. The Directorate would also need further procedures in place to process Community Infrastructure Levy payments when the Local Plan was implemented. Internal Audit was requested to investigate the Council’s readiness for processing these payments.
Resolved:
(1) That the update reports received by the Committee be noted;
(2) That the Cabinet be requested to investigate the possibility of implementing a Corporate Management Information Systems for the Council; and
(3) That the Chief Internal Auditor be requested to investigate the Council’s readiness for processing Community Infrastructure Levy payments.