Meeting documents

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors G Allman and N Smith.

There were no declarations of interest.

Consideration was given to the minutes of the meeting held on 18 December 2012.

Mr J Cornett, Director at KPMG, introduced himself and explained his role in the auditing process; he then went on to present the report to Members.

Following a question from Councillor D De Lacy, Mr J Cornett explained that 8 - 10 % of work would be undertaken by the KPMG Global Services Team in India, this would give an efficiency gain. He confirmed that the team based in India were accredited with the ISO Security Standard.

By affirmation of the meeting it was

Mr R Walton, Manager at KPMG, introduced himself and explained his role in the auditing process; he then went on to present the report to Members.

Councillor D De Lacy asked what the differences were between the old and new auditing processes. Mr R Walton reported that the timescales were shorter and the auditors would only be in the Council Offices for short periods of time. The team is larger which meant that they were more focused and the audits were undertaken much quicker.

In response to a question from Councillor G Jones, Mr R Walton stated that the new approach placed more emphasis on material risk and was proportionate.

By affirmation of the meeting it was

Mr J Cornett presented the report to Members.

By affirmation of the meeting it was

Mr R Walton presented the report to Members.

Councillor D Everitt asked if the fee paid by the Council was likely to increase next year. Mr R Walton reported that due to the change in approach the costs were likely to go down. He explained that costs were high for the current year due to the amount of time that had been spent on the audits but that did not mean there would be a further increase. He also stated that they were expecting changes to fees for the next financial year but were still awaiting guidance.

Following a question from Councillor D De Lacy, Mr R Walton clarified how the certificates were issued as detailed within the report. He also explained that if an Authority had many issues KPMG would have discussions with the appropriate Officers and put an action plan in place to resolve the problems.

By affirmation of the meeting it was

The Deputy Monitoring Officer presented the report to Members. He informed Members that since the publication of the report, the Code of Conduct training date for Castle Donington Parish Council had been confirmed as 22 May 2013 and any other neighbouring Parish Council Members were welcome to attend.

It was moved by Councillor G Jones, seconded by Councillor T Neilson and

The Deputy Monitoring Officer presented the report to Members.

In response to a question from Councillor D De Lacy, the Deputy Monitoring Officer stated that he could not give a total figure for the amount spent on compensation claims but he gave an example of a case in which £5000 compensation was paid.
Following questions from a number of Members regarding Freedom of Information requests, the Deputy Monitoring Officer stated the following:

- Requests mainly came from commercial companies and journalists but they also were submitted by people from all over the Country not just locally. He went on to explain how time consuming a request can be for officers.
- If a request required more than 18 hours of work, the Authority could charge a fee and as recommended by Government, North West Leicestershire District Council charged £25 per hour.
- He could not give an exact figure for the amount of requests during 2012 that would have taken more than 18 hours to complete but generally requests were withdrawn if issued with a fee, so the number of non compliant requests shown within the report would be a good indicator.
- There was not a limit on a request for historical information, if the information was held by the Authority it would have to be provided. However, the Authority had a Retention Policy which effected what information should be kept and in many cases historical information would have been destroyed.

By affirmation of the meeting it was

The Head of Finance presented the report to Members.

It was moved by Councillor T Neilson, seconded by Councillor G Jones and

The Senior Auditor presented the report to Members.

In response to a question from Councillor G Jones, the Senior Auditor explained that the car parking audit had been removed from the plan due to time restraints but would be undertaken later in the year.

Following a question from Councillor A Bridges, the Senior Auditor explained that the delivery of the audit plan main systems was lower than the target as the Internal Auditor was based at Blaby between September and December. Although the audits were delayed they have now been completed.

By affirmation of the meeting it was

The Head of Finance presented the report to Members.

In response to questions from Councillor D De Lacy, the Head of Finance explained the following:

- The Senior Auditor and the Head of Finance carried out the assessments.
- All authorities used the same self assessment criteria no matter what the size, which meant it was more difficult for smaller authorities to meet some of the Standards due to staffing levels. This did not affect the service.
- He was currently awaiting a change in the Standards which would be brought to the Committee in due course.

It was moved by Councillor T Neilson, seconded by Councillor D De Lacy and

By affirmation of the meeting it was