Agenda item - Internal Audit and Counter Fraud Progress Report Q3 2018/19

RESOLVED: That the Committee noted the report.

63.1    The Audit Manager introduced the report.

63.2    Councillor Sykes queried the complexities of homecare payments and how confusion on this could impact on the recipients, as stated on page 107.  The Audit Manager replied that the reason behind this was to get the processes working efficiently for homecare and secondly to ensure costs be passed on to the customers in a transparent and timely way.  He acknowledged that getting bills out to elderly clients accurately and on time was important and said that some suppliers had to be paid in advance due to IT problems.

63.3    Councillor Sykes asked about the plan to look at asset disposals of agricultural buildings.  The Audit Manager replied that audits which included the agricultural element were carried out regularly on the council’s property portfolio. He added that this included disposals and that he was happy to check this again and report back on this.

63.4    Councillor Gilbey queried the hours stated for carers or third party care providers, as mentioned on page 105 and asked how this was monitored and whether there was a rota system.  She also asked whether it was checked whether workers were on zero hours contracts and paid the Living Wage. The Audit Manager replied that recent changes had meant that they did not record home visits using the same process as before and that he would have to check the current methods used and report back.  The Executive Director, Finance & Resources replied that since there were a number of different processes used, he was happy to check these and report back to the Committee on these findings.

63.5    Dr Horne asked for clarification on the importance of recommendations, since it was not currently clear whether recommendations were flagged up as high or low priority within the current report. The Audit Manager replied that this was easy to do and would be addressed going forward.

63.6    RESOLVED: That the Committee noted the report.