Issue - meetings

To consider the Work Plan for 2013/14, to note the changes made since it was last considered in March, and to determine any further amendments.

Consideration was given to the Work Plan for 2013/14.  An amended Plan, which rescheduled the work to utilise a provisional meeting date in November, was circulated at the meeting.  It was agreed that in view of the overall workload, and various statutory deadlines that needed to be met, that this date was now needed.   

In considering the Plan it was requested that as part of compliance monitoring there should be a Member led ‘Cardiff Review’ of six procurement invoices.  The Monitoring Officer commented on possible data protection implications of such checks and said she would need to be satisfied appropriate controls were in place.  The External Auditor commented that such checks had not been carried out recently by any of the Audit Committees she attended and she needed to understand the reasons behind them given the number of checks already carried out in this area by both the External and Internal Auditors.  It was also questioned whether testing a small sample of invoices would provide any real assurance and, therefore, whether it was worth the resource required.  It was agreed that the matter be discussed further with the relevant Member/Officer Group, to include Councillor D Marren and the Monitoring officer, and be reported back to the Committee in due course.

It was confirmed that training for Standards Committees was already in the Plan and that there would be a report back to the Committee on the culture of the Council (Minute no 6 refers).  The External Audit Plan 2012/13 scheduled for November in the revised Plan, was moved back to January on the advice of the External Auditor.

RESOLVED

That the Work Plan and the amendments detailed above be noted, and further reports be brought back to the Committee on the suitability of further work being undertaken on procurement invoicing, and on the culture of the organisation