Agenda item

To receive the report from the Audit Manager (Veritau), the Counter Fraud Manager (Veritau), and the Information Governance Manager (Veritau), which asks the Committee to note the update on progress made in delivering the internal audit, counter fraud and information governance work for 2022-23; and the plans for work to be completed.

The Assistant Director, Audit Assurance, Veritau presented the report which provided the Committee with an update on the delivery of the internal audit work plan for 2022-23, along with an update on the counter fraud and information governance work undertaken to date in 2022-23.  

Member’s attention was drawn to Annex 1 of the agenda pack which detailed the audit work finalised to date, the priorities for the remainder of 2022-23; and provided a summary of key issues from the individual audits completed since the last meeting of the Committee in July 2022.

The Counter Fraud Manager, Veritau presented the section of the report related to the Council’s counter fraud activity 2022-23, it was explained that the key focus of the counter fraud work was in preparation for Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) in North Yorkshire, to ensure that strong counter fraud policies and procedures were in place for inception day of the new authority.

The Committee heard that there was the potential for an increased risk of fraud occurring in the run-up to LGR, as criminals may try to take advantage of the uncertainty caused by any change in administrative arrangements to commit fraud.  It was highlighted that an e-learning package for employees had been produced at all the Councils involved in LGR, this raised awareness of the increased risk, and focused on threats that may be experienced before and after the new Council was formed.

Members noted that the counter fraud team had raised awareness of whistleblowing on World Whistleblowers’ Day in June 2022, to make all officers aware that they should raise any concerns they had in the public interest, and that there were protections in place should they do so.

The Committee were informed that the Council’s counter fraud transparency data had been updated in May 2022 to include data on counter fraud work completed in 2021-22, this helped the Council to meet its obligations under the Local Government Transparency Code 2015.

In terms of investigative work, Members heard that a total of 54 referrals of suspected fraud had been received in the financial year, to include potential council tax fraud, council tax support fraud, housing fraud and business rates fraud.  In addition, investigatory work had resulted in amended business rates assessments for two businesses who had incorrectly received small business rate relief, and a warning was issued to a business which had inappropriately claimed a £10k Covid-19 grant.

The Information Governance Manager, Veritau drew the Committee’s attention to annex 3 of the report which provided an update on Information Governance matters, developments in the Council’s Information Governance arrangements and compliance with relevant legislation.

Members noted that following completion of the privacy notice review in 2020-2021, Veritau had, in consultation with the relevant service areas, applied the relevant changes to the privacy notices, and of the thirty four privacy notices in total, seventeen had been completed and uploaded to the Council website.  A further seventeen privacy notices were subject to ongoing review before publication onto the website.

The Committee acknowledged that the Council had completed a review of the Information Governance policies, and all were now published on the Council’s website.

The Committee were informed that a review of the Information Asset Register (IAR) had been completed in March 2022, to reflect the United Kingdom’s (UK) GDPR compliance needs, and apart from two service areas, Housing and Property Services, the register reflected all the Council’s current information assets.  It was noted that a further review of the IAR would consider alignment and consistency of information across the district councils in advance of LGR. 

In terms of Information Security incidents involving personal data, Members were informed that three such incidents had been reported to Veritau, one of which was assessed as very low risk, and two as a low risk after investigation.

The Committee queried what was the cost to the Council in terms of counter fraud man hours to recover monies which had been identified as lost through fraud investigation.  It was confirmed that there were a number of factors which made it very difficult to quantify the cost, however overall, the figures were similar across all local authorities both regionally and nationally. Members felt it would be useful to have a breakdown of the officer salary costs needed to investigate and recover the £8k of actual savings in 2021-22, to ensure value for money had been achieved.

As at the meeting in July 2022, Members raised further concerns regarding the completion rates for officer PDR’s, as stated within the report the figure for the first five months of 2022-23 had stood at 5%, it was requested that the Committee be provided with current PDR completion figures. 

RESOLVED:

i.                 To note the progress made on the delivery of internal audit, counter fraud and information governance works.

ii.               To provide Members with a breakdown of percentage figures showing the amount of monies recovered against the cost to the Council of the counter fraud work required to investigate and make the recovery.

iii.             To ask officers to circulate the current PDR completion rates to Members.