Venue: Exe Room, Phoenix House
Contact: Sarah Lees Member Services Officer
Link: Audio recording of meetings
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Public Question Time To receive any questions relating to items on the Agenda from members of the public and replies thereto. Minutes: There were no members of the public present. |
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Minutes of the previous meeting To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting held on ****** (copy attached). Minutes: The Minutes of the Meeting held on 2 December 2014 were approved as a correct record and SIGNED by the Chairman.
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Chairman's Announcements To receive any announcements that the Chairman may wish to make. Minutes: The Chairman had no announcements to make.
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Audit report recommendations (00:02:08) PDF 256 KB To discuss with the Chief Executive the outstanding recommendations within the Audit performance reports (reports to follow). Minutes: The Committee had before it 3 sets of appendices * showing a) the overall position of high, medium and low recommendations since 2012 for each audit b) a summary of the high priority outstanding recommendations and c) a full list of missed milestones, projects behind, ahead or on schedule.
Discussion took place regarding each of the appendices commencing with the overall summary position. The Chief Executive was asked to provide his comments on what appeared to be a significant number of overdue recommendations. He stated that he felt the summary showed a reasonably healthy position, that the Council had an active and diligent audit service and that it was good to have recommendations for improvement. With severe budget cuts managers had been place under increasing pressure. There were some ‘quick fixes’ that could be achieved but other improvements were more complex and would need the involvement of other services such as ICT.
It was suggested that a culture existed where managers’ compliance with agreed audit recommendations had secondary importance compared to the ‘day job’. It was stated that such a situation would not be allowed to exist in the commercial world. However, the Chief Executive responded by saying that the recommendations needed to be viewed within the context of increased financial pressure and less staff resource. There was a difficulty when people left the organisation, as frequently happened, where recommendations got passed on to new members of staff who needed to be given time to familiarise themselves with their service area before acting on them.
It was felt that certain staff were being placed under extreme pressure as staff left or were made redundant. There was a fear that this additional pressure would lead to stress and sickness levels would rise. Cllr Mrs Roach stated that Members would need to look very carefully at what services the Council could strip out in the coming years given the severe financial pressures and effect upon the staff. Regarding audit recommendations managers would need to recognise that they had a responsibility to look carefully at these and to challenge recommendations if they were not realistically achievable within available resources.
The Chief Executive informed the Committee that the Council was about to have an audit by the Devon Audit Partnership which would include a survey which could reveal how the staff were coping with the extra pressure due to increased workloads. Cllr Mrs Roach, as Chairman of the Scrutiny Committee, also offered the services of her Committee to undertake a survey in this area.
Specific discussion took place regarding the following service areas:
Building Control
The audit had been completed in 2012, however, seven recommendations from this remained outstanding. The Chief Executive was questioned as to why this was. It was explained that there had been a recent redundancy meaning that extra work had been assigned to another member of staff. Going forwards, it was hoped that a solution could be found by working more closely with North Devon particularly in relation to ICT ... view the full minutes text for item 62. |