Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Councillor Ho and Councillor Robertson.

No declarations of interest were received.

Members wished to highlight that Audit Committee are actively scrutinising reports and hope the minutes would reflect this.

The minutes of the previous meeting, held on 26th November 2024, were taken as read and approved as a correct record.

Anthony Thomas (Director - Finance, Regulation and Enforcement (Section 151)) spoke to the committee regarding the council’s shareholding arrangements with the Cinema and LWMTS. He explained the council has a 100% holding in LWMTS and a 50% in the LLP for the cinema - each of these, individual entities.

The council can, optionally, set up a shareholder committee to oversee these interests. The Shareholder Committee could contain political representatives reflecting the make up of The Council and could avoid the need for political appointments to the company Board, which was a recommendation from the previous committee meeting. This and the shape of the company board could be considered as part of the upcoming constitution review.

Members reviewed and agreed the work programme.

Report of the Internal Audit Manager. Including Invitation to Major Projects Team - Delivery Phase Risks

Rebecca Neill (Interim Audit Manager) presented the report to the committee. She highlighted changes made to SR8, including an increase to the score which takes this risk outside the existing risk appetite. Other minor amendments including now outdated 3^rd line assurance has been removed from the Register. These changes are highlighted in yellow.

Members acknowledged the change to SR8 and accepted that certain risks are outside of the control of LDC but appreciated efforts to mitigate the risk.

·       Members asked about paragraph 3.11 in the report, which refers to quarterly updates with Leadership Team and the Interim Audit Manager. They asked if the Chair of Audit Committee should be involved or have sight of that.

Ms Neill explained that these referred to operational meetings for officers in managing risk. Members receive assurance on risk and are able to contribute to the risk management process via their routine updates on risk at the Audit Committee. 

·       Members asked about SR7 and when this score may be reduced.

Ms Neill confirmed that cyber security was a particularly difficult risk to manage as it was an ever changing landscape in terms of new threats and attacks. The Chair noted that I.T. – the owners of that risk – have previously been invited to Audit Committee. The nature of this risk means there is unlikely to ever be a point where it disappears.

·       Members asked about the Properties Leases and Charges Report.

Ms Neill noted that the audit report as highlighted referred to a 2023/24 planned audit which had been finalised in 2024/25. She explained that it had received a reasonable assurance opinion overall but that the audit had identified some weaknesses in internal control as highlighted by the Committee. An action plan was in place to address these and the Committee are able to track implementation of those actions through their monitoring of the follow up process.

John Smith (Performance and Programmes Manager) was invited by the committee to discuss risks involved with current major projects.

·       Members asked about New World Trading Company (NWTC) and recent reports it has entered a CVA.

Mr Smith confirmed LDC and Evolve Estates were aware of this CVA, and it is something companies do to dispose of non-profitable units. It does not necessarily mean NWTC has serious financial difficulties. Advice was received on this from Trowers & Hamlins. Anthony Thomas added that there are a series of mitigations within the contract to manage the risk, including staged payments that are only made following the completion of set targets.

·       It is a correct assumption that the £1.7 million involved is to improve an asset that the authority owns and could utilise for another operator if absolutely required. Members asked if there could be a public statement to clarify this point.

Officers agreed to take this away and discuss.

·       Members asked about the process involved in narrowing down the sale of land involved in the Birmingham Road Site to two potential buyers.

Mr Smith confirmed there were several bids that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 40.

Report of the Director – Finance, Regulation and Enforcement

Anthony Thomas presented the report. He confirmed there were no significant changes in the Capital Strategy element of the report. The principles and framework of this report will not change, however political discussions over specific details mean that elements may change before Full Council. Arlingclose undertook a best practice risk of the report, and on this occasion, to best manage credit risk it was recommended an additional new limit of £5million be included for UK domiciled money market funds. This will be included in the Cabinet version of the report.

RESOLVED: Members considered the Capital Strategy and Treasury Management Strategy Statement, did not highlight any changes to be made and agreed the recommendations to Cabinet in relation to:

2.1 The Capital Strategy and Capital Programme, outlined in APPENDICES A & B.

2.2 The Minimum Revenue Provision Statement for 2025/26, at APPENDIX C, which sets out the Council’s policy of using the asset life method for making prudent provision for debt redemption.

2.3 Treasury Management Strategy Statement for 2025/26 APPENDIX D.

2.4 The Investment Strategy Report (APPENDIX E) where no changes are recommended for 2025/26.

2.5 The Capital and Treasury Prudential Indicators for 2024-29 in the financial implications section.

2.6 The Authorised Limit Prudential Indicator shown within the financial implications section.

Report of the Audit Manager. Including Discussion of outstanding Audit Recommendations with Director for Resident & Business Services.

Ms Neill presented the report to the committee. She confirmed that 44% of the Audit Plan had now been completed. BDO has been supporting the team to get the plan completed for this quarter. She confirmed the assurance outlook is looking positive for LDC. There are currently no ‘limited’ or ‘no’ assurance reports that would usually cause concern. It was also stated that the performance of work on outstanding audit recommendations is also looking healthy. She suggested that recommendations that have been outstanding for a number of years should be looked at to see if they are still worth implementing given the level of time elapsed.

Ms Neill explained that Public Sector Internal Audit Standards are changing into Global Internal Audit Standards and work on this will be reported back to committee in the coming months. More information on this is included in the report.

Members welcomed significant progress on the area of follow up, highlighting the work of the Chair, Cabinet Member, and additional training to strengthen the scrutiny ability of the committee.

The Chair confirmed he and the Vice-Chair would be having regular update meetings with the Internal Audit Manager.

Lizzie Barton (Director for Resident & Business Services) was invited to discuss outstanding Audit Recommendations.

·       Members asked about the outstanding audit recommendations dating from 2020.

Ms Barton highlighted that the Digital Team is relatively new but is much more capacity and capability to deliver these recommendations

Ms Barton highlighted the ongoing work on the Joint Waste Service and reengagement with Tamworth on this area. She believed the Joint Waste recommendations would be resolved at the next Joint Waste Committee meeting in March.

The recent restructure of revenues and benefits was highlighted to members as well as the planned recruitment of an additional role funded by the additional debt that would be recovered by that role.

RESOLVED: The committee received the Internal Audit’s Annual Report, including results for the quarter to 31 December 2024, asked questions of the Director for Resident & Business Services and received assurances about the progress of audits and outstanding audit recommendations.

RESOLVED: “That as publicity would be prejudicial to the public interest by reason of the confidential nature of the business to be transacted, the public and press be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business, which would involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972”

IN PRIVATE

The committee elected not to enter exclusion of press and public.

Item to only be used if members have questions on confidential information relating to outstanding audit recommendations.

The committee elected not to enter exclusion of press and public.