Agenda and minutes

The Chair welcomed all present. Apologies were received from Councillors Berry (substitute Councillor Birchmore), Gartside (substitute Councillor Bernstein) and A Arif (no substitute).

Members of the Audit Committee are asked to consider whether they have an interest in any of the matters on the agenda and, if so, to formally declare that interest.

No Declarations of Interest were submitted.

The Director of Finance, Neil Kissock, presented the report setting out the Council’s response to the statutory recommendation from Forvis Mazars.They identified three significant weaknesses in the Council’s arrangements. These weaknesses were across all three reporting criteria that they were required to consider under the Code of Audit Practise, namely; financial sustainability, governance and for improving the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of services.

The report set out the operating context in 2021-2023, which had been a challenging period operationally, and the steps taken during that time to construct a new operating model and multi-year transformation strategy, with the new operating model and associated corporate governance being validated in 2023 and 2024 via Corporate Peer Review by the Local Government Association (LGA)

The report also outlined the work undertaken to better understand its Financial position and over-reliance on reserves, by engaging with the Chartered Institute of Public Finance Accountants (CIPFA) and the LGA Peer Review, and the actions taken during the period.

The Risk Management approach had been strengthened through a review of the Corporate Risk Register and leadership from the Audit Committee, over-seeing the management of a number of high risk situations, including information governance and recovery of the deficit in the DSG budget High Needs Block, but issues with internal governance and control processes were exemplified through the failure to accurately identify and mitigate against the presence of RAAC in the Council’s estate.

The report further outlined improvements in internal controls to shore up compliance activity, including appointment of a new Director of Finance, a peer review of the internal audit function and establishment of the Corporate Governance Group, chaired by the Council’s Monitoring Officer.

In recognition of the historic weakness of its finance capabilities, a voluntary Finance Improvement Panel was established in 2023, with representation from CIPFA and the LGA to oversee the setting of the 2023/24 budget and deliver a series of improvement actions, including appointment of a substantive S151 Officer, a fundamental review of the Council’s reserves policy, an update to the Treasury Management Strategy, the specification for an upgrade to Unit 4 to improve data accuracy and cleansing of the ledger and investment of Programme Management support to deliver the 23/24 budget savings. A zero-based budget exercise had been undertaken across every departmental service, and which had identified a structural funding gap of c£17m for children’s social care, which was addressed in the 2023/24 budget.

Since 2021, when Ofsted had found Bury’s Children’s Social Care services to be inadequate, a fundamental improvement plan had been delivered, and six subsequent Ofsted monitoring visits had been completed, with a full inspection expected in the first quarter of 2025. The report referenced the work of the Project Safety Valve programme in responding to inadequate SEND services.

Whilst it was recognised that the actions and progress made were addressing some of the issues identified by the External Auditors in the value for money review and statutory recommendation, the Council recognised that more needed to be done and the actions,  ...  view the full minutes text for item AU.45