Agenda item

Report of the Corporate Director for Finance and Resources

Simon Parsons, Audit Manager, presented a report which provided an update on results of completed follow up reviews in respect of two ‘no assurance’ reports previously reported in September. The follow up into the no assurance reports issued into Appointeeship and HR/Payroll have been completed.

The Chair explained that the Committee would first consider Appointeeships. The following information was highlighted:

a)  The reason for the no assurance report was the system being used to manage finances is not fit for purpose. This system remains in place and thus a no assurance report still remains, however a number of steps have been taken to address the recommendations.

b)  Lucy Lee, Director of Customer Services, outlined actions taken against the recommendations of which 5/11 have been completed. The actions completed were within the Council’s control and the remaining 6 are now in progress but have been hampered by external factors. The remaining actions involve setting up accounts through Lloyds Bank, which the Bank are only able to do at a rate of 10 per week.

During the discussion and in response to questions from the Committee, the following points were made:

c)  The Committee received assurance that at the Committee’s meeting in June it will receive an update demonstrating that all of the outstanding actions will be completed.

d)  The Committee queried how a resolution is found to returning money of deceased persons to their families/next of kin. It was explained that an external finders agency had been commissioned to track down relatives. If they cannot be found it is absorbed back to the Crown Estate, the Council does not keep this money.

e)  The system used by NRB could not separate citizens monies from Council funds despite it being ringfenced. The Council was moving to a system that could separate funds but this was taking time due to external factors. It was, however, clarified that they were never merged and were in ringfenced accounts but the issue was within the limitations of the system.

In respect of HR/Payroll the following information was highlighted:

f)  The no assurance report still remains as there has not been enough evidence of progress to justify raising the assurance.

g)  Lee Mann, Strategic Director of HR and EDI, outlined progress made so far and how the service intends on addressing the recommendations. This includes the reestablishment of the Pay and Governance Board which will meet later in March to discuss progress, system functionality will be in place to monitor pay progression and ensure it is done automatically, and work is being done with East Midlands Shared Services to resolve issues with the Oracle Fusion HCM system including data integrity concerns, exception reports will be reviewed with EMSS and the process will be shared with Committee. A manual check will continue for a while to confirm the automatic progression is working. Establishment should be uploaded from mid-March and there will be a control process to ensure the rebase remains accurate. TUPE checks will be confirmed by the end of February – relevant posts have been identified through differences in grade structure

During the discussion and in response to questions from the Committee, the following points were made:

h)  It was estimated that around 40 individuals have been identified who have not progressed in pay, accounting for around £70,000. This was due to managers not manually progressing employees. The Committee received assurance that this would not affect equal pay liabilities and that there are existing controls in place to mitigate that.

i)  The issues around Oracle Fusion is an ongoing piece of work to identify where the problems exist such as within functional or user issues.

j)  The Committee queried the non-implementation of the establishment controls recommended by PWC. It was explained that it was a complex process that will take a significant length of time and involved three different systems attempting to manually triangulate a variety of information over a long period of time. It was recognised that this is a priority however there is only a certain amount of capacity to get this work done.

k)  The Committee received assurance that an update will be provided at June’s meeting which will demonstrate significant progress made against the recommendations.

The Committee noted the update.