Audit and Governance Committee - Thursday 24 October 2024, 4:00pm - Slides Tab - Cotswold District Council Webcasting
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Agenda item :
Start of webcast
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Agenda item :
1 Apologies
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Ana Prelici, Officer
Slide 1
Agenda item :
3 Declarations of Interest
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
Agenda item :
4 Minutes
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5 Public Questions
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6 Member Questions
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7 Internal Audit Progress Report
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Officer
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Councillor Len Wilkins
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Officer
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Helene Mansilla
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Helene Mansilla
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Officer
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Officer
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Michael Vann
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Officer
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Officer
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Officer
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Helene Mansilla
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Christopher Bass
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Christopher Bass
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Michael Vann
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Officer
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Officer
Agenda item :
8 Counter Fraud and Enforcement Unit Update Report
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Officer
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Officer
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Officer
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Officer
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Helene Mansilla
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Helene Mansilla
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Officer
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Len Wilkins
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
Agenda item :
9 Ombudsman Report 2023/24
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Angela Claridge
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Jeremy Theyer
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Angela Claridge
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Christopher Bass
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Angela Claridge
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Angela Claridge
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Angela Claridge
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
Agenda item :
10 Q1 Prudential Indicators (Treasury Management)
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Helene Mansilla
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Helene Mansilla
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Helene Mansilla
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Helene Mansilla
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Chris Twells
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor Chris Twells
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
Agenda item :
11 Climate Change
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Mike McKeown
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Councillor Angus Jenkinson
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Mike McKeown
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Mike McKeown
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Christopher Bass
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Christopher Bass
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Christopher Bass
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Councillor Mike McKeown
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
Agenda item :
12 Work Plan
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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David Stanley, Deputy CEO
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Councillor Nigel Robbins
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Webcast Finished
Disclaimer: This transcript was automatically generated, so it may contain errors. Please view the webcast to confirm whether the content is accurate.
1 Apologies
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:00:00
the absences that we need to report on and substitutions.Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:00:09
So we received apologies from Councillor Patrick Coleman and Councillor Angus Jenkinson is substituting.Ana Prelici, Officer - 0:00:14
We've also received apologies from John Cheshire, one of our independent members.3 Declarations of Interest
Thank you Anna. Do we have any declarations of interest that we need
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:00:24
to know about given the agenda?And have we all seen the minutes of the last meeting?
4 Minutes
Do I need to go through?
I can.
Page by page.
Page 5 in your papers.
Page 6, which includes the introduction of our new external auditor's Bishop Fleming.
Page 7.
Page 1. Page 8. And Page 9. If you are all happy, if you were here, could you please
raise your hands just to approve those minutes? I think there is an error with times on Page
9. What was the O? It says we started at 2 o 'clock. I'm sure
we start at four. Well it was only till I was 21 but I think it started at four and finished at 6 .21. Yes exactly yes yes
that's right add two please in each case well spotted thank you. He didn't do
Public questions?
No, no public questions.
5 Public Questions
6 Member Questions
Do we have any member questions? We will get them in the course of the meeting, naturally.
No, we have not received any member questions.
7 Internal Audit Progress Report
No. Let's turn to the Internal Progress Report, which is there on page 11.
Lucy, you are not going to tell us there is a huge number of reports. There are just two
of them. Would you like to just introduce the subject, please?
Thank you, Chair. As you have said, this is the internal audit report
Officer - 0:02:33
for the meet listquarters work. It is the update on the work that the internal audit team have done for
Cotswold District Council. You have two final reports in your pack tonight. The appointment
of consultants which we gave a middle reasonable assurance to and the accounts payable quarterly
review which we gave a high substantial review to. Since the conclusion of this report we
have finalised the emergency planning and the members allowances reports, human resources,
data protection and 106s will be finalised very shortly so all those reports will come
to your next meeting. We continue to follow up all agreed actions and those can be found
in your appendix. Happy to take any questions.
Councillor Len Wilkins - 0:03:29
Q. Thank you, Chair. Insufficient oversight on no induction or regular refresher trainingon procurement. Are we intended to introduce it or do something about it or we just let
this drift?
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:03:47
That's a very good question. I think I'm going to ask Lucy.Lucy, would you like to respond to that, please?
Officer - 0:03:56
Sorry, that would be one of the agreed actions. I'm hoping that's in your appendix B.But yes, there will be training in respect to procurement and I'm sure officers will have things in place for when officers transition back into the council.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:04:14
David, please add to that. Thank you.Thank you. If it helps, Councillor Wilkins, there is the much overdue procurement regulations
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:04:24
for 2024 that were due to be enforced in October that have been delayed till February. I'mfairly certain that the procurement part of public that's run by Kieran will be providing
refresher training and training on the changes in that procurement regulations
to ensure the managers and consultants and agency staff are fully versed in
what the new requirements of those regulations are but that's being delayed
until the 24th of February 2025.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:04:56
Councillor Helene Mansilla - 0:05:01
On page 23, under the key conclusions first paragraph, why is there insufficient oversightof consultant costs?
And what steps will be taken to improve compliance with the local government transparency code
2015.
Either one, yes.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:05:24
Councillor Helene Mansilla - 0:05:26
That is to do with the information that's posted on the Council's website in respect to transparency.So what we found as part of our testing, consultants weren't included in the contract register.
So to give it a full view, those consultant contracts need to be included in the contract
register and published on the Council's website.
Officer - 0:05:57
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:06:04
Thank you for that.Given the amount of money that is spent on the consultants, I think I'm quite surprised
to find these criticisms levelled against the process of procurement compared with the
final audit summary.
Would you like to comment on that?
To me, there seems a little bit of a mismatch.
These seem to be quite serious failings and yet the judgement is perhaps slightly generous.
What do you think?
Officer - 0:06:38
We do debate the assurance levels when we undertake an audit.I think at the time that we did the audit we felt that mid -reasonable was a fair result
for the audit.
Granted, there might be some significant sums but there's mitigation in place.
So consultants are known about, they're just not necessarily on the contract register.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:07:06
Councillor Bairn.But I was ordered actually also on page 23 that 72 % transactions are not supported with a purchase order.
Just supposing that I'd had that failure record during my life, I would have expected to have
been jobless for a considerable period of time.
Comment, please.
Councillor Michael Vann - 0:07:40
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:07:44
Just in terms of that part of the report that highlights, I suppose, the lack of a purchaseorder, that's not uncommon.
I've been at two authorities where we did introduce a no purchase order, no payment
mechanism that does take time to scope out correctly.
We do encourage staff to raise a purchase order where they can.
What I'm not a fan of is retrospective purchase orders where you raise the purchase order
after you know what the amount of the invoice is.
But clearly, we do need to consider how we move to a more compliant position with purchase
orders because it helps not only give you, as members, assurance that we know what we're
doing, but it also provides useful management information to understand what has been committed
on the budget.
Because without that purchase order, you've got no record of what you may have placed
an order for until the invoice turns up.
The difficulty is that in the current environment we've got where public can provide the accounts
payable solution on behalf of the three partner councils, we can't do that ourselves because
they run accounts payable and accounts receivable on behalf of the three partner council.
But it is something that if you spoke to my opposite numbers, Andrew Knott at Forest and
Madhu Richards at West, we would be supportive of moving to that.
But what it does require when it was introduced when I was there at Stroud and when I was
at Harpshire County Council does require a good 12 to 18 months lead in so you can go
through all the different suppliers notifying them that if you don't provide a purchase
order you won't be paying you.
But also scoping out those types of invoices where it won't be appropriate to have a purchase
order and that's usually for utilities like electricity and gas, also mobile phones and
some other things, but we do need to get to a position where there is much more information
on what the council is purchasing and how it is purchasing and part of that is having
the purchase order process.
But I'll take those comments away from members and take that into account in terms of what
you've, what is reported in the internal audit report and work with the finance team in terms
of how we can move that along more quickly.
But given the investment that will be required within the financial system to make that work,
it might not be something that we can do particularly quickly because there will be other priorities
in terms of making changes to the way the financial system ABW works as we start the
transition from everything being within public services coming back from the council.
There's quite a significant amount of work to do in terms of making sure that we have
the financial system that works for Cotswold that can run together with the financial systems with the other partner councils
But is separate and distinct so but I'll take those comments away and work with the finance team and IT in terms of
Finding a way we can accelerate the process and moving towards that type of environment
Thank you for that one way of
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:10:53
eliminating the the need to have everypurchase, underlined with a purchase order, would be to set a financial limit so that
any order is above a certain level.
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:11:09
Thank you, Chair. I have two questions. The first is relatively straightforward as a question.On Item 7 we are dealing with climate and ecological emergencies, implications, but
only climate change implications are dealt with.
Why are we not dealing with ecological emergencies as well?
This is on page 13, unless I'm misreading what I'm reading.
And obviously in the body, that's reflected in the body of the text.
That's my first question.
The second question, forgive me chair, but I am subbing today.
It could be that this question is naive and doesn't need to be dealt with, or it could
be that by virtue of the fact that I am not a normal hand at this, I might be able to
ask a question from left field so to speak that is useful.
The governance system for anything,
the model for a governance system,
needs to have sufficient or requisite variety to cope
with the variety of what it is trying to govern,
or in this case, audit.
How did it come about that this particular set of activities
should be the audited ones in order to determine
whether we are in fact managing ourselves appropriately?
How was it brought about? I'm not trying to ask a forensic question to go through it all,
but just what is the general principle by which this is the set of things that we would be looking at at this point?
I'm going to ask Lucy. There is an internal audit plan for the year
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:12:58
that is prepared to which the members can contribute.So it's then down to the...
Officer - 0:13:11
You've answered nearly all the questions, Chair, except that we consult with all officersas well and we pick up things in audits that we've undertaken during the current year that
might need further review next year. So, our audit plan is, it's a live document, so anything
you find during the year you may want to look at. Also, something may happen and David will
knock on the door and say, can we pick this up as an audit now, please? So, it's a very
flexible plan but we do have a plan that comes to the Audit Committee for approval usually
in April.
Does that mean there is actually a basic model from which all of these different things would
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:13:45
be drawn that would represent a governance framework for what CDC does?Officer - 0:13:53
We look at the risk registers and we look at, we also have information from our Instituteof Internal Auditors as a risk in focus document that gives us ideas of what we want to look
in future years. So we pull everything together as a company. So some of my peers in SWOP
are looking at some of the same things that we are. But again, this plan is specific to
Cotswold District Council.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:14:20
Officer - 0:14:21
And my first question, this is climate in echolongering.Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:14:27
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:14:30
In terms of that, this is the way the reports work. There is a report template that Democraticservices provider report authors, which has these headings on and the narrative that's
included in 7 .1 is in the template.
So what we can do to ensure that officers consider not only the climate and ecological
emergency implications is to change that text because what they should be doing as a report
author is including any details on climate change and ecological issues.
And it's just guidance there for the report author to consider that.
In this case, for the internal audit report that you've got in front of you, there are no climate change or ecological emergency implications relating to the report itself.
But clearly for other reports that the Council might be considering there would be.
But it's more guidance for the report author to consider that and provide a suitable response if one is needed in the template.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:15:27
Just to explain, Councillor, SWAP is the South West Audit Partnership which Lucy representson our behalf.
Thank you, Chair.
Last question.
Councillor Helene Mansilla - 0:15:37
Going back to page 23, on the last paragraph, additional information.How will the recommendation for a no -purchase order, no -pay policy be implemented to improve
financial monitoring?
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:16:03
In terms of that particular comment, yes, any way in which we can getDavid Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:16:06
more meaningfulinformation in terms of what a budget holder is intending to do, and that is if they are
raising a purchase order for invoice for works or services that can be delivered in say five
six weeks time and that purchase order on the financial system allows us in consultation
in conjunction with the budget holder provide more meaningful information to you as members
in terms of this is the performance of the budget.
So it's not the only reason you do it so one of the main reasons for raising purchase orders
is actually that's the point at which the authority is committing the expenditure so
The point at which it is more appropriate to authorize that expenditure is the point
at which it's been ordered.
The benefit of doing that is you then move into more of a commitment accounting position
where you are building up over the course of the year an indication of how that budget
will be spent.
If you don't have commitments in the financial system you're wholly reliant on a conversation
with the budget holders.
What have you spent so far Fred?
well I've spent a thousand pounds of my ten thousand pounds budget if they don't volunteer they've committed the other nine thousand
Then you could end up in a position where they spend that nine thousand pounds twice or another budget holder
It spends it on their behalf
So having that commitment in the financial system aids decision -making and helps you as members understand
How that budget is being spent and whether it's available for other purposes
Should they be struggling to achieve the objectives of having that budget in the first place?
Next, please.
Just a couple of things.
Christopher Bass - 0:17:39
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:17:43
So, first thing would be to add my support to a no -PO, no -pay process, particularly whenlooking at the report where it talks about, although a very small number, there are some
duplicate payments.
So, if there's a three -way match going on, then it should eliminate duplicate payments.
Christopher Bass - 0:18:00
Just a suggestion as well, rather than going for a limit from a funding perspective forThe other thing to do is to have an approved list of the types of services that don't require
a purchase order.
Something like the utilities would be really sensible.
On a completely different topic, I was just wondering, apologies if I missed it, but was
IR35 compliance in the scope of the consultant's audit?
I'm just thinking that there's IR35 quite a hot topic and there are quite big fines
to organisations that unwittingly pay a consultant that isn't declaring their payroll taxes in
the correct way. So just be good to understand if that's in there.
Thank you.
Thank you for that.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:18:45
Councillor Michael Vann - 0:19:26
On page 24, it's really very impressive.point oh one percent and that's demonstrates well it's very efficient
Officer - 0:19:47
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:19:48
Officer - 0:19:48
charity if it's not clear just to add that is all transactions for allpublic partners it's not that's not just cost of district councils so as you say
full credit to the AP team.
8 Counter Fraud and Enforcement Unit Update Report
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:20:31
I am just seeking my brain for my bit on new relationships.If you are talking about collaboration agreement.
Officer - 0:20:40
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:20:40
You are talking about relationship with a wider partnership, aren't you?It exists.
Officer - 0:20:46
I can chat to that, yes.Thank you, Chair.
So this is our usual report to the committee
regarding the work of my service.
In terms of 1 .3, I have outlined that this year
we will be focusing on fraud risk mitigation
regarding grant schemes,
because the council is paying so many different schemes now.
So we are working on a bit of a support grant management policy
and some verification toolkit information for staff generally so that
we're verifying and making sure policies are fit for purpose etc before we send
the money out so that that's ongoing the policies done so that should be starting
to come through officer groups etc and then it will eventually come to
committee. In terms of 3 .2 because Tewkesbury is now back on track I'm
to say that we've started back on the work to do the website, which will be particularly
key for residents, staff, anybody that's visiting the area.
So this is going to be information on how to report fraud, general scams, information,
how to get victim support.
So this is the one led by all of the group that I work with through the Gloucestershire
Math, which is the multi -agency approach to fraud group.
In addition, our website is just about finished,
so hopefully that should be live,
and I'll be able to send the link for that to the committee
so they can see the Counter Fraud
and Enforcement Unit website for information.
3 .3 talks about the business grant schemes,
which unbelievably are still going on.
So we are at the debt reconciliation transfer stage
still, but the deadline has been pushed out.
So we've had confirmation that we'll be able to transfer
any liability after the 31st of December.
So we are nearly there, but key bit for assurance really
that we're not left with unpaid debts.
In terms of 3 .5, it shows that we're pretty up together
with your National Fraud Initiative matches.
The results that we've had from the round of matches we've done
and the fact that the current ones are all under review.
3 .6, I've talked to you before about the housing waiting list review.
We do this for all six partner councils and we're working through your applications to
ensure the right people are on the housing waiting list and the right people are being
housed and we're not spending unnecessary funds on emergency housing for people.
3 .7, the training sessions are booked for November, so that will be an update for the
staff in terms of criminal investigation, but also around the use of social media and
open source intelligence, so making sure that we are using it in the right way and that
people aren't using their personal accounts or systems that they shouldn't be for the
purposes of council work.
Also to touch on, you talked about procurement, so it's probably handy that I feed in and
do a session on procurement fraud.
If we're going to do some refresher training around procurement, then it's important we
put that into the training as well.
3 .8, we have completed your small business rates relief
review that's now gone to the revenue section.
So again, the results of that should be back in.
So that's comparing businesses across the district and then
businesses across the wider partnership.
So it was quite a big data matching exercise for the
purposes.
So we'll do a report after that about whether or not it
generated results, whether there was error, whether we
should do it again, et cetera, et cetera.
3 .10 onwards talks to you about our enforcement support
that we give to the varying teams around the council,
so our outcomes, et cetera.
And 3 .13 touches on the fact that we've obviously
got a case in court regarding polygamous working.
So that's ongoing.
Happy to take any questions.
Oh, sorry, you asked about collaboration.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:24:58
Officer - 0:25:00
So just to let you know that our overarching legal agreement, so thepartnership is quite wide, we have been for some time, so we're with a number of
councils including Cotswold, there are six councils in the partnership and the
agreement finishes on the 31st of March, so I've been reviewing it with legal
services and it's now going through all the varying councils to be renewed
for another 10 -year cycle.
So that will finish at Cotswold
because you are the host authority,
so you have the risk because you employ my team.
So it needs to go to all the other partner councils first
for them to cross fingers agree.
So far, Tewkesbury and Stroud have,
and then it will come to Cotswold in January.
Thank you for clarification.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:25:47
I may have further questions about it.And this Thames Valley MAF group
That's really a sort of benchmarking exercise, is it, to compare progress in other areas?
Officer - 0:25:59
So a math group is run by the police in the varying policing areas and it's to specificallytackle fraud, it being the most prevalent crime in the UK now, and it's the different
bodies that are within those policing areas working together to tackle it.
Thank you very much.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:26:19
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:26:31
Councillor Helene Mansilla - 0:26:33
If I can take you to page 35, please, and page 4 .2. How does the shared service modelimprove the council's value for money.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:26:52
So how does it show value for money? So clearly I've got a budget and allsix councils have to feed into the cost of the unit and any third -party income
so that's our third party contracts with other councils and with our social
housing providers that funding also comes off the cost of the unit in
general and I then report to you so you know how much we cost that's agreed each
each year
Councillor Helene Mansilla - 0:27:36
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:27:47
In a way, because of the different areas you're looking at, there are a whole host of performanceindicators but it's not very easy to get a grasp on the overall value for money of the
enterprise.
So I wondered if any discussion has taken place in your wider group about two, three,
for key things you need to be working at to convince members
around the table like this that we are really getting value
for money?
I'd hope the report does that in itself.
Officer - 0:28:21
I mean, I think I'm clearly biased,but it's a very, very valuable service that's
providing counter -fraud prevention and enforcement
support.
The costing in terms of how much it costs is not particularly
expensive in terms of cancelled budgets and I'm obviously quite
transparent in the funding that we bring and the assurance
levels that we provide in terms of that.
It's difficult, as you say, to apply performance indicators
because I could say that I've said before my staff need to do
X number of cases per year, but then that's really difficult because some cases can take
you a couple of days, some cases can take you a couple of years. So it's really, really
difficult to force that. I think it's a case of us making sure that we're looking at loss
avoidance, revenue generation and general preventative activities to stop your money
going out the door rather than having to go and find it when it's gone.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:29:29
I think that's a very good representation of your opposition and your work.I suppose if we could guess on what we would lose if we didn't have the service, that would supply us with some of the answers.
But unfortunately that's rather hypothetical.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:29:48
If it helps members, would the council has to by law have a position on counter -fraud, bribery and corruption?and that's usually we don't like fraud, bribery,
and corruption.
So the fact that Emma's team exists
is part of our legal requirement to do something.
Now we could provide that in a different way.
We could say, no, actually we don't want Emma,
we want to buy that service in from somewhere else.
But to give you a sense of where we are with Emma's team,
we're the host authority, we bear all that risk,
we employ Emma and her team.
We pay as one of those partner councils,
around about £120 ,000 a year for all the delivery that's set out in this report and
all the other investigations that Emma's team undertakes. To give you, I suppose, some of
the softer side of that, Emma's team's presence in the building, be that real or virtual,
along with internal audit, is one of those lines of defence the Council's got against
fraud and corruption, the very fact that they exist will mean
that people are aware, staff are aware that they're being watched
for want of a better way of putting it.
Not quite that bad because Emma will be quick to remind me that
setting up the odd surveillance camera does intrude into
people's privacy and there's legislation around Ripper and
other things that determine that.
But Emma's team are very good at ensuring that other aspects of
services that's delivered across the council.
Look at anti -fraud and corruption,
and look at some of the enforcement area,
because the other part of Emma's team name is,
how do we enforce?
And where Emma's team adds value,
is if there's a really not very pleasant piece of work
that needs doing, an investigation into something,
a disciplinary, Emma's team are well equipped to do that
in a very professional manner,
and you can rely on the findings that they deliver that might eventually lead
to a prosecution and that gives confidence to you as members and to the
public that the council's got a really strong position on anti -fraud corruption
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:32:04
bribery. Thank you David. Councillor Wilkins. Yeah I just want to say that ICouncillor Len Wilkins - 0:32:08
was on the audit committee when MS team was formed. We thought we knewabout fraud, we didn't. And she's shown us over these years just what we needed to know.
It's been a fantastic team and they've done really, really well. So Emma, thank you.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:32:26
Thank you, Ganska, very much. Are there any other questions or comments, please? Thankyou, Emma. Very good.
9 Ombudsman Report 2023/24
Angela Claridge - 0:32:56
Good afternoon committee.I am standing in for Cheryl today.
Hopefully I will present all of which she would have said about this report.
Once a year we have an annual letter from the local government and social care ombudsman
and once a year you have a report with that information provided in it.
This is what you have in front of you today.
This is for the year ending 31 March 2024.
You will see in it that it states that CDC have a three -stage internal complaints process.
Anybody wishing to complain about any form of council service works through a three -stage
complaint, if they feel it is not handled as they would expect or wish to escalate further,
then they can refer it to the Ombudsman. Quite often complainants will jump straight to the
Ombudsman. You may have noticed in the report there are some that are referenced as being
premature. That is where the internal stages have not been exhausted first. As I say, this
report just deals with those complaints that have been escalated in the Ombudsman. As part
of that it shows 10 complaints were escalated to the Ombudsman during the 23 -24 financial year.
Of that I'm pleased to say it's only one although clearly one is too many, was upheld by the local
government Ombudsman and the details are set out both in paragraph 2 .5 of the report and in the
attached annex. Obviously everything is anonymized but you'll get the general gist of what the
complaint was about and where the Ombudsman felt that the Council had failed in its support
to that particular individual.
Only other final point I'd like to say is that also again in the report we make reference
to the Ombudsman's recent complaints handling code and the Ombudsman is asking all local
authorities to revise their own internal complaints procedure in light of that code and this committee
will see our proposed new policy at next month's Ordering Governments.
So happy to take any questions, Chair.
Thank you, Angela.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:35:13
Are there any comments or questions?Councillor Jeremy Theyer - 0:35:24
Just on point 2 .5, how did you get to the payment figure of £100?It just seems quite rounded up and £100 doesn't go far these days.
So through you, Chair.
Angela Claridge - 0:35:39
So I agree £100, you know, cost of living and all of that, but this was a figure thatwas proposed by the Ombudsman.
So they felt, I think it's an indication that about the level of, if you like, maladministration
that this had caused, but predominantly to reflect that there were delays in our handling
of it.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:36:01
Occasionally in the past there have been high court damages of a penny, haven't there,that sort of, which is symbolic really, as I suppose this was.
But you of course have to consider from our point of view, although it was only one complaint
which went that far, that actually if you look at the pages of the account, a tremendous
amount of staff time was taken up with dealing with this and responding and counter responding.
So from our point of view, that's the real cost, not the £100.
Chris.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:36:33
Christopher Bass - 0:36:36
Yeah, just wondering on that one, if there was internally to the council following the Ombudsman's ruling,was there a root cause analysis or lessons learned?
Just thinking about what Nigel said there in terms of the amount of time and resource that that took up.
So, I mean, we look at all our complaints in terms of lessons learned, Chris.
Angela Claridge - 0:36:57
I mean, it's a very valid point and they don't have to get to the Ombudsman before we reviewthem.
Obviously, sometimes there are other pressures which contribute and complaints, as much as
they can be a pain, are also a learning tool for us, aren't they?
So, yes, to answer your question, that one and all our complaints are reviewed.
Thank you.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:37:23
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:37:26
Thank you, Chair. This may also be a rookie question, in which case my apologies, butI'm just trying to check the time frame. We have a report that comes in after the end
of the financial year completed in March, and we're now in October, so six months plus
have passed by since then. The question I'm trying to understand is whether this has been
sitting here for six months for some reason before it's come or whether a certain amount
of work is done on what we receive from them and if so that could be characterised what
exactly happens after we receive them.
Angela Claridge - 0:38:03
Thank you, Councillor Jenkinson. The key factor in this is the date by which we receive theannual Ombudsman's letter. So it's included in your papers, so you'll notice that came
in on 17 July. Once we get that, that dictates when we can get to this committee and this
was the first opportunity.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:38:35
Thank you very much in that case. Thank you.Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 0:38:45
Yes, Chair, generally as I read through all of these, the question that arises is thedistinction between a piece of data and a piece of information, something that's informing
us about the situation.
And my impression is from this that the story of last year is not particularly problematic.
Of course we'd like an immaculate situation, but it's not particularly problematic.
And I'm just wondering if that would be a fair summary or some different summary.
In general, you know, numbers just tell you numbers.
They don't tell you what you should decide from those numbers.
I think you're absolutely right.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:39:27
I don't know how you would describe the year, Angela.It's sort of middling to fare, I would think.
That sounds like we're talking about the weather, but I think middling
Angela Claridge - 0:39:39
to fair would be very reasonable.I mean, we do state in the report that the number of complaints overall have dropped from the year before.
So I think we'll go from middling to fair.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:39:55
Quite right. One needs comparisons to see which way things are moving.And another issue which we picked up at the last audit and governance meeting
when we were talking about appeals panels for standards,
it's very clear that in terms of complaints against councillors,
not, I'm happy to say, this council,
but other councils, in particular town and parish councils,
the number of complaints allegedly about code of conduct issues
has been increasing hugely, and we can chart and follow that.
It's not always when you have an annual letter
to be quite so aware of movements in this particular case, but we need to keep alert to that.
10 Q1 Prudential Indicators (Treasury Management)
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:41:04
Thank you, Chair. First of all, an apology, but the copy of the report that was includedin your printed packs had a table in the wrong place and was missing a table, so there was
a separate printout and we've updated the report that's published on the website. Hopefully
it hasn't detracted from your enjoyment of reading the report. I say that very tongue -in -cheek
because this is one of the, as the chair said,
is one of those compliance reports.
So under the Treasury Management Code of Practice
that CIPFA published, it is a requirement for us
to provide you with at least three reports
during the course of the financial year.
One at the start of the year, which is your strategy,
that comes through this committee
and onto Council January and February.
A report at the midpoint of the year,
which you've got that coming in the November cycle,
and a report that sums up the performance of the year,
which is the out -turn report that comes in July.
In between those, you get one of these reports,
the quarterly performance report,
which is have we complied with the Treasury management
indicators, the prudential indicators that that strategy
was set against.
Cabinet received the other part of that.
They get the performance against the investment,
the performance against the borrowing.
This is very much, have we complied with the investment limits or the borrowing limits
that we set ourselves through that strategy that Council approved?
I am pleased to report that in Table 1, which shows the investment limits, we have complied
with all those investment limits.
Just to explain that table, because it is not necessarily as straightforward as it looks,
The first column is maximum.
That's the maximum balance that was in that particular sector
during the course of the first quarter.
The actual is what was actually invested in that sector on the
30th of June.
And the sector limit, which is that second column in from the
right, will set out what the total exposure we can have to
that sector with the counterparty being individual
institutions that form part of that sector.
column, indicating whether we complied with those limits or not, and you can see it's
got a yes all the way down.
The next table, table two, which is one that was in the wrong place, is the liability benchmark
for Q1, always one that causes some head scratching in terms of what it's intended to show.
This was something that was introduced in the last refresh of the Treasury Management
Code of Practice to demonstrate whether or not the council or the local authority in
question was able to manage its debt and whether or not it had adequate resources available
on the balance sheet to manage liquidity.
In the examples that we have got on the calculations for the four years shown in that table, the
council has no underlying need to borrow as our balance sheet resources, which is that
second row from the top is significantly high enough and above our new loans requirement
because we don't have at this particular point in time an expansive capital programme that
requires the council to borrow to finance that.
So the current position is effectively projected forward over the remainder of the capital
programme period.
Clearly in future years the council may need to borrow, it may have an expansive capital
programme.
The liability benchmark doesn't take into account
future decisions that you're yet to take.
It is only based on the capital program and your
financing position as approved by council in
February of this year.
The next table sets out the longer term treasury
management investments and whether we've got what
we've got particularly low limits on principles
invested beyond each year and we've complied with
those, that was the table that was missing from the
report. There are some additional indicators that cover off what our average credit rating
was and whether we were particularly exposed to a 1 % increase or decrease in interest rates
and what that limit was. But happy as ever to take any questions that you may have on
the report.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:45:31
Thank you, David. Please go ahead, Herve.Councillor Helene Mansilla - 0:45:41
David, just refreshing my memory, perhaps, if we go back to the liability benchmark table,the capital projects driving the CRF, no, CFR, sorry, increase, are they still aligned
with the long -term financial planning, looking at the 2027?
So what you'll see on that particular line is it bumps along in the next couple of years
around about half a million pounds and then increases to 4 .6 million.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:46:22
That is by and large the plan in the capital programme to acquire new waste and recycling vehicles.Vehicles that's in the plan that doesn't mean to say that that's what we'll do as I'm sure there'll be
Other ways we can manage that fleet over the course of the coming
Months and years and there will be other considerations that I'm sure
Councillor might be queuing would like us to take into consideration, which is is it sensible for a council that's declined
declared a climate emergency to go and buy new diesel
polluting vehicles.
So all of that feeds into the longer -term planning.
What we've done in the capital program is indicated
based on the asset life of the fleet that it would
require replacement on or around 2026, 27, but clearly
there's a number of discussions that need to
take place as to what is required, what type of
vehicle, what's needed in terms of the service.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:47:22
Councillor Helene Mansilla - 0:47:24
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:47:30
Councillor Helene Mansilla - 0:47:31
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:47:35
Councillor Helene Mansilla - 0:47:39
If we do, David, if we are in a situation that is being forecast forDo we have a plan for when the balance sheet resources decrease and the external borrowing
is required?
That's my first question.
My second question is how will the interest rate changes impact future borrowing costs
given the projected need for loans by 2027.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:48:26
So unpacking some of that, the overall position that's set out by 2027 is there's a broad assumption,as you can see, the balance sheet resources are decreasing, so we're spending the cash that we've built up.
That cash is made up of revenue cash but also capital receipts.
So at the moment the council for the past 20 or so years has financed its capital program
without having to borrow externally.
It's made use of capital receipts that it got from the stock transfer back in the 1990s
of its council housing stock to largely to Bronford but other RPs.
Without any change in that position, so without the council disposing of other assets to generate
to new capital receipts, they've been run down with
acquired assets, swapped cash from capital receipts
for an asset.
That position is as it's set out there.
We would have an underlying need to borrow to support
the capital program.
Clearly, with interest rates where they currently are,
and it's relatively high compared to where they've
been for the last dozen or so years,
that becomes an expensive decision.
So if you're looking at borrowing money today for 50 years, we would go to the Public Works
Loans Board and they would give you 50 year money for about 5 .2%.
When we borrow money, we then have to charge MRP on it, minimum revenue provision, which
is essentially setting aside amount of revenue each year to ensure that we can repay that
loan when it becomes due.
That's another 2 percent if the asset life of something is also
50 years.
So your cost of capital to your revenue budget is around about
7 percent.
Your cost of capital with utilizing internal resources or
capital receipts is much lower.
It's not zero because clearly you could be using those
balances to invest and generate a return, say 3 or 4 percent.
But part of what you'll see coming through in the updated
medium -term financial strategy report that will go through
Cabinet next month and ultimately in the February 2025
MTFS is understanding the best way to start planning for that
capital expenditure and how you have an alternative to, well,
the only option is to borrow, because to borrow currently is
actually a very expensive option.
Not historically, if you take the average interest rate
over the last 30 years, it's been on of around 6%.
We've been spoiled, I suppose, by having a very low
interest rate environment for a dozen or so years
where you could have borrowed 50 year money
for about 1 .6 % about three years ago.
That's not where we are, but we need to bear that in mind
when we're looking at the affordability
of the capital programme, because it's the revenue impact
of that capital that we need to be able to afford
within the revenue budget.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:51:31
I'm sure everybody is well aware that the current government is planning to reversewhat we've experienced in previous years to encourage local authorities to build more
council housing without the low interest rates that used to prevail.
So that's going to provide everybody, I think, with an interesting challenge.
Councillor Chris Twells - 0:51:55
Yes, thank you, Chair, and you've mentioned the budget, and since we're rattling throughthe agenda. While David's batteries are fully charged I wonder if you could
comment perhaps David on, it's not strictly to do with this item, next week's
budget. So some rumors about reforming council tax, more council tax bans
potentially that would be something very helpful for a council like ours where I
and IJK houses and obviously we're in the fortunate position that a lot of our revenue
compared to other councils comes from council tax.
I wonder if there's any rumours, any mood music or do we need to wait until the actual
budget?
Well, you're quite right.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:52:51
As you say, the agenda is rattling on.And if we do have time to discuss this, perhaps we should take the opportunity.
But bear in mind that David's comments are probably likely to be his personal comments.
But if you're willing to do so.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:53:10
I'll give you my personal, I suppose, CFO view, which is whilst the council is heavily reliant on council tax income,as most local authorities in the southeast are compared to their
their neighbors further up north in the Midlands. Politically I think for any
government to make changes to the council tax system that's being
established for such a long time the longer it's being left the harder it
will be for them to make those changes so whether that's through revaluing
because everything's based on 1991 valuations whether that's introducing
additional bans, whether that's providing different incentives.
I think politically it's a very difficult choice any government faces, which is why
it's not being tinkered with one way or the other.
I would always say wait until the budget and then wait until the settlement, because the
budget will give you a sense of the direction that always the devil is in the detail until
we get the local government finance settlement, which usually turns up a couple of days before
Christmas.
That's when we find out the real position in terms of the funding for the councils.
We are anticipating government through MHCLG to release probably about three to four weeks
after the budget a policy statement as they have done in prior years, which might give
a stronger indication of the direction of travel, but it won't provide that granular
in terms of what does it mean for COTS.
That's very helpful, thank you.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:54:49
Councillor Chris Twells - 0:54:49
I wonder, I can't remember when we're next meeting, Chair, is it not until the New Year?No, never.
Oh, great.
Great.
I'm looking forward to it.
I wonder if we could possibly quiz the cabinet member and David, maybe do a bit more of a
deep dive into, we won't know until Christmas maybe, so perhaps it's not until the new year,
but maybe unpack that a bit more.
I appreciate we're not the Treasury Scrutiny Committee, we're Audis, but it would be interesting.
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 0:55:29
I think in terms of report writing I'm currently drafting a sort of a budgetstrategy in MTFS update report that will go through overview and scrutiny
committee at the beginning of the week after next and on to cabinet on around
the 7th of November. That will set out more the direction of travel it's that
February report that comes through cabinet and it's overview and scrutiny that does
that review and that challenge and that that meeting is open obviously to all
And I know certainly that the chair of overview and scrutiny would encourage all members to
attend.
What I did do last financial year, I think, was I'd say warmly welcomed by members.
I did have at least one person saying they welcomed it, but doing an all -member budget
briefing shortly after the papers had been published to talk members through the budget
from a CFO Section 151 perspective and talk you through that in more detail.
Thank you, David.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:56:26
I hope that gives you some indication of what's in storeand how these things can be communicated.
The next item, item 11, is update on actions to embed
climate change.
11 Climate Change
Members of this committee will recall that there was a survey
done, a staff survey done, about climate change and how it was
affecting them and their behavior.
Unfortunately, not many people filled it in,
and we weren't very happy with that.
I don't think anybody was.
Now, we were to have had Claire Locke coming along.
Is she available?
Right.
She's online.
OK.
Claire?
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:57:23
Are you there Claire?Councillor Nigel Robbins - 0:57:27
I am sorry, Jo your microphone was off for a moment then I lost you.Good afternoon everyone, apologies first of all that I'm not there in the room with you this afternoon.
Are you able to hear me okay?
Are you able to hear me in the room?
OK. Good afternoon and hopefully you can hear me now. Apologies first of all that I am not
in the room with you this afternoon. Unfortunately I can't be there. You have a report that I
provided for the committee that gives a brief update in the actions that have been taken
since that survey was undertaken. I think there's a huge amount of activity that has
been done and continues to be done in this area. So just, I'm not going to go through
everything that I've put in the report because you're clearly able to sort of follow that,
but just to sort of summarize very briefly, I think one of the big things that we're bringing
forward now is something called a sustainability toolkit. Risk was something that was picked up
as part of that questionnaire and actually it's far bigger than risk. It's around us considering
the implications of every decision that the council takes, whether it be a policy, whether
it be a construction project, whether it be support we provide to communities to consider
all the environmental elements of this. Picking up on Councillor Jenkinson's question earlier
in the meeting around inclusion of ecology, the Sustainability Toolkit does cover ecology as well.
So that toolkit will be used to assess decisions or policies as they come forward.
And the corporate project management team are currently trialling that on
asset -based projects. So they will undertake an assessment. The way this works is, for example, if you were to be building a new leisure centre,
you might come up with the initial designs and proposals. We would then assess those against the toolkit. That would then tell you whether or not you were going to have a negative impact on the environment, on the ecology.
and it would point to actions you need to take to actually try and flip that so it's not negative and it becomes positive or at least neutral.
You can then continue to reassess the project. So you might, for example, using the Building a Leisure Centre example, you may say,
OK, well, we need to use different materials, we need to design it differently, we need to use local contractors to try and make it more positive.
we need to fit solar PV and heat pumps so that actually in operation that centre then becomes carbon neutral.
So you can continue to assess the project as you go along. So that's a really positive thing that we'll look at things like risk
and all the environmental impacts that might result from decisions that the council takes.
So over time you will hopefully start to see that coming forward to you as part of decision reports.
So that toolkit and the results that that produces would actually be appended to decision reports that come to committees and cabinet and to council.
Another element I just wanted to touch on is the climate scorecard.
So this is a national assessment that is undertaken on an annual basis.
We've not done tremendously well with that historically.
but we've put a lot of effort in this year to making sure that the information,
setting out all the activities that we're doing as a council, are transparent on our website.
Some of the reasons that we've not done particularly well before is that it's volunteer researchers that look at that information
and if they can't find it readily on our website, then they assume that you're not doing an activity.
So a lot of work has gone into that and I know you have the cabinet member for climate change and sustainability,
Councillor Mike McEwen is in the room with you there. He's been personally very involved in overseeing that work
to make sure that we are very transparent in all the activity we're doing on climate.
The other thing that I think is really helping at the moment to try and make sure that staff across the board
fully understand how their roles impact on this particular agenda is work on the climate board.
So, Councillor McEwen and myself and our climate lead officer, Olivia McGregor, have been meeting
with senior officers from all of the teams that support the council to talk to them about what
their service is currently doing on the climate agenda and where there might be opportunities for
to do more. So for example, we've been talking to the waste service about how they're looking at,
you know, greening their fleet, how they're looking at making sure services are efficient,
and where there might be opportunities to actually do things even better to protect the environment.
So there's active conversations at the moment going on around that. And obviously that is
ensuring that all staff and all teams truly take responsibility for climate. And then the last
I was just going to mention was carbon literacy. So we've done a lot of work to offer carbon
literacy training for staff and for members. And that is a sort of short course that people can do
to understand carbon impacts more and how they can play a part in trying to mitigate that.
And they can actually get certified as being carbon literate at the end of it. So we're
seeing increasing numbers of staff and members going through that process now,
which is really, really positive. So that was all I was going to say,
but if there's any questions, I'd be very happy to take them. Thank you.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 1:03:37
Thank you Claire very much indeed. That's very clear.And that answers most people's questions.
You're quite right to point out to Councillor McEwen,
who's our resident expert in so many of these issues is in the room with us.
So you're, you're well supported. It does seem before I,
I'll throw it over to him.
This is a case where, although many organisations and political organisations will boast about
what they're doing, but when you actually get down to it, very little is actually done,
decisions are not made, there's much less on the ground, this seems almost to be an
inverted situation where a huge amount is going on.
But some of our people don't seem to know about it.
And of course, the staff are the people who can actually best promote the organization
if they know what's going on.
So particularly your strategies here, I think, for improving their knowledge and understanding
are really well worthwhile.
So thank you for that.
Mike, do you want to say something now?
Here's your chance anyway to…
Yeah, no, thank you.
Thank you.
Councillor Mike McKeown - 1:04:45
I'm delighted it comes up because it's my passionand I'm glad to see, you know, whenever it comes up
that it gets to the forefront of everybody's mind
and the point that it should be in the mind
of everything we do, every officer in this room,
every member in this room, and the rest of the organization
as much as humanly possible, all of our residents
and businesses and what they do.
And as Claire mentioned, the Climate Board,
that's been actually very effective.
I mean, from big stuff like how do we decarbonize our biggest
source of emissions, the fleet, which is a pretty big piece of
work, but even simple things.
We were talking to the team that does the council tax bills and
concluded they can put materials in to go to all the residents
to help promote our energy efficiency programs.
I've just come from the chairing climate leadership, Gloucestershire,
which sort of reminded me of both the risks and the
opportunities this gives us.
So on the risks side, we had a big session on adaptation,
which is basically, you know, it is going to get pretty bad,
and it's going to get worse.
The impacts on the environment and homes and residents,
and there's lots to be done on there,
which kind of highlights that this is coming home to us,
and already is.
There's lots to do.
So good reason on the negative side.
But on the positive, you know, we also had a big session on the
retrofit program or more reasonably public facing called home energy efficiency program
that we just won funding from the Southwest Net Zero Hub with climate leadership Gloucestershire,
ourselves, Cheltenham and Forest of Dean.
So we're launching a big program.
We've just onboarded a new energy efficiency officer and they're going to be going out
and engaging with the communities to get them to improve their home energy efficiency, fit
solar, heat pumps and so forth.
And what's the opportunity there?
Doesn't just cut a carbon footprint, but you know, in a debt in the world
where energy prices are high, it will save people significant amounts of money.
So that's much like putting solar on here is saving us
tens of thousands of pounds.
So there's a big opportunity, which again, why I'm delighted
that it comes up and more opportunity to get it in everybody's mind.
Yeah, another one that's very close to us here.
it's opportunity for business. You know we have zero aviar on our doorstep, a
leader in decarbonizing aviation which is creating high value jobs that's just
one example so I think you know yes there's a negative to climate but there's
a huge opportunity so yeah I just ask everybody here in here listening just do
all you can as Claire's highlighted we've got some nice structures in place to
to help you consider it in there we've done training for officers recently
members as well which I know many of you attended so I think it's a I'm glad to
see the collaboration and good to see ya to see it here in the audit and
governance committee thank you
Councillor Angus Jenkinson - 1:07:57
Thank You chair I have the benefit of having a number of conversations withI am well aware of the passion and commitment that he and the team have for this and it
comes up enough times to know that it is really important to the Council, which is excellent.
I have three somewhat related questions.
Maybe I could ask them all three together and then perhaps remind if it is necessary.
The first question is, when we talk about Cotswold District Council and Net Zero, what
is Cotswold District Council? What are we defining as the Cotswold District Council
that is to be Net Zero? Is it the Cotswold District? Is it these officers? And is it
something in between? So what constitutes what it is that we are trying to turn into
net zero. That's the first question. The second question is, I won't argue for the moment
about whether net zero is the right target, but let's assume that it is. There are all
kinds of reasons why legally and so forth we should be aiming for it. So given a net
zero target for it, do we have a model that specifies what it is that needs to be changed
in order to achieve that? How that outcome would be brought about in the time frame?
And I'm also conscious that we have a county timeframe also to become net zero in this
respect.
So how do we fit that?
I'm asking this because there might be a range of things, item A to Z, let's say, of things
that need to be done, some of which are easy but the little result are the more important.
There would be a range of things that need to be achieved.
They may add up to better than zero.
They may not get anywhere close to zero.
Do we have an idea of how we would get to zero?
That's the second question.
The third question is this.
Obviously it is happening across the county.
Other districts are also doing this.
I know that Claire, you work also with other districts.
The question is, from the officer's point of view, is working on this something that
is best achieved for this team to work in a way that is specified and designated as
belonging to Cotswold district? Or are there benefits that are best achieved by working
in the mode that Publica had, in which you were working across multiple districts? And
if there was intended to be a change, how would we make sure that we do not lose those
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 1:10:34
benefits? So what's the scope? What is Cotswold? What does Model Zero look like and how doget there and how does that work out for the working relationship across the districts
and county?
So who would like to tackle the first one? What is Cotswold District when we're talking
about that?
Maybe there's a double act between Claire and I. I guess there's different aspects.
I'll switch off and let you fight in between. Thank you.
Councillor Mike McKeown - 1:10:57
Claire, did you want to say a few words first?Yeah, I'm happy to. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I think in terms of what is Cotswold District
Council, it's really focused on the Council's own operations. So there are different set ways in
which we monitor our carbon impact. In terms of the Council, it's the things that we directly
influence. So it will be things like our staff transport, it would be our waste collections,
it would be our leisure centres and certainly waste and leisure are the biggest carbon emitters, as you can well imagine, in terms of our own operations.
So there is clear definitions in terms of what's included and what isn't.
In terms of modelling that change of what do we need to do to get to that point of net zero,
Part of the work that we're doing around the climate at the moment is looking at those opportunities.
We know, as I've just said, that the leisure service and also the waste collections are big hitters,
but we've also got a lot of buildings, like the building you're sat in at the moment, that will have a significant carbon impact.
We're going through a process at the moment where L
e need to focus and prioritise the areas that are having the biggest carbon impact to date.
And then we need to identify the opportunities for changing that and prioritise those so
we are focusing our limited staff and financial resources on the things that will have the biggest
impact, the biggest positive impact in terms of driving down carbon emissions. So that is a piece
of work that's ongoing at the moment. We will be producing an action plan that sets out all of that
and that will all be linked to the data so that we can show where we need to focus and what the
impact of those actions will be and that will lead us then to that position of net zero.
So we don't have that at the moment, but it is a piece of work that's currently in train.
In terms of working county wide, I think actually the Councillor McEwen is better able to answer
that question. Clearly the climate has no boundaries. But we, you know, we have our
sphere of influence is largely within our district, but we are doing a lot of work county
So, Councillor McKeown might want to come in that because he's actively involved himself
in leading a lot of that work.
Thanks very much Claire.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 1:13:44
Mike, if you'd like to pick that one up.Yeah, yeah, and I'll just cover a couple of those other points.
Councillor Mike McKeown - 1:13:49
So, as Claire very well eloquently said, there's a big focus on our carbon footprint.We have to do that as our duty and show leadership.
But an important part of what we do is helping our districts cut its footprint and our answer
to Council Jenkins' question, because that's the majority,
we're probably less than 2 % of the district's
carbon footprint, so what we have to do it,
our impact by helping our businesses,
including agriculture and our residents cut theirs,
has a huge, huge impact, and hence why
a lot of our programs and activities relate to that.
A tool I use is quite useful, it's called the Impact Tool,
which can tell you down to parish level
What the carbon footprint is from a particular parish or a particular district?
Yeah, and I'm you know, fairly unsurprisingly because it's quite similar across the country
We're quite quite high because it's a wealthy area
But the top things for us as a district which map actually to us as a council transport is the biggest
Second biggest is our homes the buildings themselves and the third is agriculture
from a territorial perspective
as council Jenkins well knows we talk about it a lot is
Agriculture is an interesting one in that it's the one that
actually has the potential to be negative so it can actually
absorb and help meet the others and meet them earlier.
So that helps us a lot, I think, in a lot of our
mischiefs focus on others.
I mentioned the retrofit home efficiency one,
which addresses the homes and buildings,
the us fitting EV chargers, which is, you know,
one we work hard on, helps adoption of EVs,
which addresses the biggest source of carbon,
which is transport, and Angus himself is working a lot on the
whole agricultural side of things as well,
moving that to regenerative farming and so forth.
On the last question about, you know, how do we achieve this,
you know, is it better together, absolutely.
I mean, it's at all levels.
So the stuff that we, you know, can and do do ourselves,
collaborating at a council level, at a county level we do.
So we're one of the members of climate leadership.
Gloucestershire, which is all the public sector bodies in
Gloucestershire, not just the councils, but the police, the
NHS.
I'm the current, it's a rotating chair, and I'm the current chair
for the next six months.
Rob is part of that, is the lead officer for us on it.
And that has a lot of collaboration.
I mentioned the retrofit program where literally we are working
together, the officers are meeting up between them
yesterday and again tomorrow to plan and work together.
And we're achieving a lot more.
We've just awarded a contract to a company called FurbNow
to help us run a lot of the advice and help for residents
to plan and transition their homes.
But also at a national level.
So we were one of the founding members
of what's called the UK 100, which
is a national organization with members of councils
across the UK that work together with each other and lobby government for more
powers, more statutory duties on climate change. So I went on their Climate Academy
last year. I was at one of their events in London where the new CEO of the
Climate Council was speaking. So there's a lot we do there quite
actively. We learn from each other, we do collaborative projects as well. So it's
It really is at all levels.
It's a big problem as we all know to solve,
and we solve it by working together as organizations and
citizens and businesses.
Thank you very much, Mike.
Christopher Bass - 1:17:44
Inexhaustible topic.Yeah, just a couple, if I may.
The sustainability tool, really like the idea of that one.
Just trying, just thinking about what plans there are
and how that would actually be rolled out in practice.
So is that every project
or is it a project over a certain threshold?
Can you talk a little bit about how that works
in practical terms?
Probably best.
Go ahead.
So, yes, thank you.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 1:18:11
So at the moment it's just being trialled.So we're just testing it to make sure
there aren't any issues with using it.
But in theory, it could be used for any project at all.
It doesn't take that long for an officer to fill it in.
I've done it myself,
and I've done it for a very sizeable development.
And it probably took me about 30 minutes
to input all the information that's needed.
So it's not over onerous.
So it could, in theory, be used for every project that we do.
And certainly any that are clearly gonna have
some kind of environmental impact,
or have the potential to,
we would definitely be doing it then.
I think the area we need to be clear on
is how we use it for policies.
And I think we just need to test a few really
to see how that works and make sure that it is a robust way
of assessing policies against those environmental criteria.
That's excellent.
Christopher Bass - 1:19:06
Thank you.Sounds really, really good.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 1:19:08
One quick follow up.Christopher Bass - 1:19:09
I think the committee has probably heard my thoughtsabout training in the past.
I'm quite passionate about this.
I'm going to bring up each time training comes up because I work in a regulated industry,
so I'm not used to the idea that training is optional.
So I just wondered on this one in particular, the council is pushing an agenda which has
a lot of passion for, is there a reason that the training is not mandatory?
Is there a reason for that?
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 1:19:34
I don't know whom you ask on that question, other than leave of the council and the deputyleader. Claire. Thank you, Trey. We haven't made it mandatory at the moment, but we are actively
encouraging staff and members to participate in this training and actually so far the take -up's
been pretty good. So I think that is quite powerful in itself. If we get to a point where
we have some people that haven't taken it up, then we could decide to make it mandatory,
but we prefer to try and encourage people to do things rather than impose it.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 1:20:19
I seem to remember that where code of conduct training was required we actually published,did we publish the names of the people who were attended? I think we did.
That usually has a salutary effect.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 1:20:37
Thank you both very much for your contributions. Yes, a further comment from from Councillor.I just want to wrap up and just say a big thank you to Claire
Councillor Mike McKeown - 1:20:43
and Olivia in particular, our climate officer,I know worked very tirelessly, not just this report,
but really the whole climate work,
and many other officers who are now getting involved
on the climate board.
So just a big thank you, Claire, and to everybody.
Okay.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 1:21:00
Thank you both very much for that.That brings us to the final point of our meeting,
which is looking at the work plan, the work programme, and you'll see from that
12 Work Plan
the dates of the next meetings. Are there any significant points, David, you need to
highlight really in the, certainly in the next meeting, if not the January meeting.
Yes, thank you, Chair. Just in terms of the statement of counts and audit opinion,
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 1:21:33
Michelle and I had a catch -up with Bishop Fleming, our external auditorsyesterday and they think it is unlikely they'll have the audit opinion ready for
the November cycle. Part of that discussion was ensuring that over the
next two weeks there's a push on both sides so Michelle and the team are
clearing all the audit queries as they come up straight away and Bishop Fleming
are adding additional resource to try and accelerate delivery of the audit.
What I will do for the November meeting regardless is provide you with an update
report because if there's an opportunity to receive the audit opinion by the end of the
calendar year, then I may do an update report that seeks delegation to myself and the chair
to receive that audit opinion rather than roll that over into January. Because in January,
that's when it starts getting quite tight against the backstop date where we have to
have the audit opinion signed off by the end of February. So if there is an opportunity
you to do that under delegation. I'd quite like to request that delegation in
consultation with the chair to ensure we can close that audit off as soon as
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 1:22:45
possible. I'd like to ask members if they're happy with that process orprocedure. I can see how it might clog up the January meeting or be clogged up by
it. Does this mean that we would get a kind of draft opinion to members before
January between the November and January meetings. So what I'll do is I'll go back
to Bishop Fleming and see what they can realistically do. They don't tend to do
David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 1:23:09
draft opinions until they're pretty much certain that the audit is complete. Whatthey may be able to do depending on how quickly they can can work through the
audit and to give you some comfort to date they found nothing of any
significance to report either to myself or Michelle.
But what I would like to be able to do with that delegation
is circulate the audit opinion and the final set of
accounts with the adjustments a week in advance of that
delegation being actioned to give all members of the
committee the opportunity to provide comment either to
myself or to the chair prior to that delegation being taken.
And this would be just about the statement of accounts.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 1:23:52
it wouldn't include value for money, which is one of the other areas they have to look at.David Stanley, Deputy CEO - 1:23:58
It would include the value for money, so when they provide the council with its audit letter,that includes the opinion on the financial statements and whether that's a represented
true and fair view and whether they give that an unqualified opinion. But also they would be
providing the value for money judgment, which in prior years you may recall has been provided to
the committee at a separate time to the opinion on the financial statements. So it would come
at the same time. We've provided Bishop Fleming quite a significant amount of information
this week and they're working through the VFM position as we speak. So it would come
along at the same time. Clearly with the VFM opinion it's worth members refreshing their
minds as to what those issues were that Grant Thornton identified both in 21, 22 and 22,
23. Bishop Fleming being a new external auditor won't rely on previous work that was undertaken
by GT and have gathered evidence in a very different way and they will need to provide
that opinion to you. But yes, the full audit opinion would include the VFM judgement as
well.
Thank you David very much.
Councillor Nigel Robbins - 1:25:13
Well with that, that's the conclusion of our meeting.Thank you very much for your attendance. Thank you for the
alternates. Thank you for Chris's presence and contribution. Thank you to the
officers as well. Well done. Thank you very much.
Well done you. Thank you David too.
- Minutes of Previous Meeting, opens in new tab
- Internal Audit Progress Report Oct 2024, opens in new tab
- Annex A CDC Internal Audit Plan Progress Oct 2024, opens in new tab
- Annex B CDC Agreed Actions Oct 2024, opens in new tab
- CDC Audit & Governance Committee Report October 2024, opens in new tab
- Audit Ombudsman Report 2023-24, opens in new tab
- Annex A - Cotswold District Council Annual Ombudsman Letter, opens in new tab
- Annex B - Final Decision, opens in new tab
- Treasury Prudential Indicators Q1 2024-25 Correction, opens in new tab
- CDC Audit & Governance - Climate Change, opens in new tab
- Work Plan, opens in new tab