Annual Audit and Inspection Letter

 

            At its meeting on 12th March, 2008, the Cabinet received a report of the Chief Executive enclosing and commenting on the contents of the Annual Audit and Inspection Letter submitted by the Audit Commission.           

            In accordance with the arrangements approved by the Council at its meeting on 5th April, 2000, the report, together with a recommendation of the Cabinet thereon, as set out below, is referred to the City Council for consideration:-

 

             The Chief Executive submitted a report enclosing and commenting on the contents of the Annual Audit and Inspection Letter submitted by the Audit Commission relating to their current assessment of the Council. The Audit Commission’s report was based on the findings and conclusions from the audit of the Council, inspections which had been undertaken in the last year, and a wider analysis of the Council’s performance and its improvement over the last year as measured through the Comprehensive Performance Assessment carried out in September 2007. The Audit Commission’s main messages for the Council were set out on page 4 of the Inspection Letter.

               Sue Sunderland, the Council’s External Auditor, introduced the presentation for Members by stating that the Audit Commission’s overall judgement was that the City Council was a ‘four star ‘ Authority which was improving well. The Council had demonstrated strong community leadership and was delivering good outcomes for local people. It worked well in partnership and had established its role as a ‘place shaper’ by co-ordinating the activities of various agencies to regenerate the City.  She acknowledged that the Council had identified areas for improvement and stated that the main issues for the Council to address were the need to achieve greater consistency of approach in areas such as programme and project management, contractual partnership arrangements, HR and aspects of internal control, and also the need to increase attainment at primary school level.

                Peter Catterick then provided a corporate assessment of the Authority and its ‘Direction of Travel’, commenting on the Service scores in the CPA improvement report, and indicating that service performance was generally improving well. He drew attention to the improvement since last year, stating that the ‘visionary leadership, strong partnership working and a culture of consistent challenge to make improvements had led to the delivering of good outcomes for local people. He also identified areas where practice needed to be more consistent.

                 Dave Phillips, the External Audit Manager, continued the presentation by commenting on the Council’s scores in respect of its use of resources, where an unqualified opinion on the accounts had been provided with a conclusion on the value for money arrangements to say that the Council made proper arrangements to secure economy, efficiency and effectiveness in its use of resources for the year ended March, 2007, except for the failure to put in place arrangements to maintain a sound system of internal control.

                All Members of the City Council had been supplied with a copy of the report and had been invited to attend the presentation and were given the opportunity to ask questions on the issues raised in the Annual Audit and Inspection Letter.  It was reported that the report had also been considered by the Audit Committee at its meeting on 11th March, 2008.

RESOLVED: That (a) the information contained in the Audit Commission’s Annual Audit and Inspection Letter be noted; and

            (b) the Chief Executive be asked to put in place improvement actions to address the points raised in the report by the Audit Commission.

(NOTE:  1. The Audit Commission’s Annual Audit and Inspection Letter is a matter which is reserved for approval by the City Council and cannot, therefore, be called-in for scrutiny; and

               2.  Copies of the report of the Chief Executive on the Annual Audit and Inspection Letter have been circulated previously to all Members of the City Council.)

 

 

Liz Bashforth

Assistant Chief Executive,

Legal and Governance