Agenda and minutes

To note the attendance at this meeting of any duly appointed Reserve Members.

Reserve Members may attend meetings:-

(i)                 to take the place of an ordinary Member for whom they are a reserve;

(ii)               where the ordinary Member will be absent for the whole of the meeting; and

(iii)             the meeting notes at the start of the meeting at the item ‘Reserves’ that the Reserve Member is or will be attending as a reserve;

(iv)              if a Reserve Member whose intention to attend has been noted arrives after the commencement of the meeting, then that Reserve Member can only act as a Member from the start of the next item of business on the agenda after his/her arrival.

RESOLVED:  To note the attendance at this meeting of the following duly appointed Reserve Member:-

To receive declarations of personal or prejudicial interests, arising from business to be transacted at this meeting, from:

(a)               all Members of the Committee, Sub Committee, Panel or Forum;

(b)               all other Members present in any part of the room or chamber.

RESOLVED:  To note that there were no declarations of interests made by Members.

That the minutes of the meeting held on 1 September 2010 be taken as read and signed as a correct record.

RESOLVED:  That the minutes of the meeting held on 1 September 2010, be taken as read and signed as a correct record.

To receive questions (if any) from local residents/organisations under the provisions of Committee Procedure Rule 17 (Part 4B of the Constitution).

RESOLVED:  To note that no public questions were put, or petitions or deputations received at this meeting.

To receive references from Council and any other Committees or Panels (if any).

There were none.

Report of the Corporate Director Finance

The Committee received a report that set out changes to the Statement of Accounts 2009/10 that had been made following consideration of the draft accounts at the last Governance, Audit and Risk Management (GARM) Committee meeting.

The Corporate Director of Finance and the external Auditors, Deloitte LLP advised that whilst considering the draft accounts the external auditor and the Council had identified issues relating to the management and control of the Capital Programme.  As a result, the Council had initiated an investigation on capital expenditure.  They added that mitigating measures had been put in place.  The Leader of the Council, the Leader of the Conservative Group and the Chairman had been informed and would be updated on the progress of the investigation.  Officers were unable to comment on the position at this stage as the investigation was ongoing, however, discussions between finance officers and the Auditors would continue until the investigation was completed.  Nevertheless, officers and the external Auditors were confident that the results would not have an impact on the total amount of Capital expenditure reported in the accounts for 2009/10.  The Auditors stated that they would confirm whether they would sign the accounts in line with the timetable after a discussion on this matter with the Corporate Director of Finance.

An outline of the Auditors reports was provided for which representatives of Deloitte LLP reported as follows:

·                     a number of changes to the Audit Commission and their work had been made since the start of the 2010/11 financial year.  The Audit Commission would continue to operate under the existing framework until it was abolished in 2012.  Local Value for Money (VFM) audit work was no longer in operation and had not been applied to the statement of accounts 2009/10.  As a result, local Use of Resources scores would not be published this year.  For 2010/11 a targeted better value approach had been adopted.  Results of local VFM audit work would be reported in the annual audit letter;

·                     the auditors were independent of the Council and had completed the report on the Statement of Accounts in accordance with the government’s accounts return principles.  The Audit certificate for 2008/09 and 2009/10 accounts would be issued following the resolution of an outstanding objection relating to parking charges by a local elector;

·                     a number of misstatements in the accounts had been identified.  These included:

o                   a surplus of £929,000 had been reported for net assets.  As a result, further control mechanisms for the valuation of fixed assets had been introduced by officers;

o                   following an actuarial valuation of the insurance fund, the insurance provision included in the 31 March 2010 statement of accounts was £5.161 million.  The opinion of Auditors was that a surplus of £400,000 had been included in this estimate of future payments for insurance claims.  Taking this into account, it was believed that the true figure was £4.7 million;

o                   the actuary had calculated and reported on the assets of the pension fund in accordance with Financial Reporting Standard  ...  view the full minutes text for item 37.

Report of the Corporate Director Finance.

A report that set out the anticipated core annual work programme for the Committee was presented.  An officer advised that:

·                     the report had been prepared following a request at the 29 June 2010 meeting of the Committee;

·                     the annual work programme had been drafted following agreement of the wider Terms of Reference at the GARM Committee meeting on 8 April 2010;

·                     following a Member request, an Insurance report would be added to the existing work programme for presentation at the March GARM Committee meeting each year.

RESOLVED:  That the work programme report be noted.