Agenda item

Consideration was given to a report which presented the Audited Statement of Accounts for 2016/17 to Members for scrutiny and adoption.

The Section 151 Officer introduced the report, outlining:

·         The surplus remains at £1,058,000;

·         The pensions’ deficit has increased by £7.5 million.  The contribution from West Lindsey District Council remained the same.

Members then asked questions of officers, and also provided comment on the Audited Statement of Accounts.  Responses to questions, and further comments were provided as follows:

·         There was a recommendation from the external auditors in the ISA260 report from last year regarding changing the bank reconciliation system changing to new software.  There were some software issues in October related to the internal audit affecting a number of transactions; however the reconciliation was signed off by the auditors as being appropriate in spite of these issues. Efforts were made to ensure these reconciliations were accurate throughout the year, and this issue has ow been fully resolved;

·         The Section 151 Officer drew Members’ attention to a programme called ‘Customer First’ aimed at improving customer satisfaction, as well as the quality of services that customers receive.  The situation around complaints had not changed since the report was written; however there were ongoing discussions about defining what a ‘complaint’s is.  Some complaints received are around the outcome of a decision, rather than the process that was followed in reaching that decision (Planning was cited as an example);

·         West Lindsey District Council (WLDC) would be able to exist, without touching reserves for one full year, plus another third (this was expressed as 130% in the report);

·         There was an assumption in the calculations for the pensions liability based on a pay award of 3%;

·         The staffing trends calculated in the report are all comparable this year;

·         As reported through Corporate Policy and Resources throughout the year, there have been a number of ‘windfall grants’ that haven’t been fully expended.  These totalled around £101,000.  Also to note:

·         a refund of around £172,000 from the pension fund;

·         Planning income exceeded its target;

·         Statutory accounting - £3.3 million. The capital programme was not delivered so the schemes were carried forward into the financial year;

·      There has been a regular underspend on employee costs.  Each year, senior officers will discuss their discretionary spend; this has reduced over the past three years;

·      Fuel costs have reduced substantially for WLDC as an organisation. Half of this reduction has been taken as a benefit for this year; the other half has been kept as a contingency, particularly with fuel costs beginning to rise again;

·      From a staffing perspective WLDC regularly look at staff, what is needed, and what those staff are doing.  The costs associated with statutory services and discretionary services are being examined;

·      A provision of £1.9 million on business rates appeals was reported, with the WLDC share of this being around £700,000.  Each month a report analysing the Valuation Officer’s list appeals is received, and currently this stood at £1.4 million;

·      Surestaff had predominantly provided operational services staff for the Green Waste team at WLDC over the past year.  They had also provided general office staff; however there are a number of specialist recruitment agencies that had helped to fill posts.

WLDC were by far the biggest contractor for Surestaff.  Built into the business plan was a low cost provision for WLDC, which allowed Surestaff the capacity to build up other contracts.  Surestaff was split into two companies – the second of which provided services to the Private Sector;

·      The amount of time technical systems are available and (‘uptime’) was at 99%.  There was a thorough recovery route should systems fail.  IT systems are shared with North Kesteven District Council;the primary servers for both authorities are held at West Lindsey.  If a problem with the servers at West Lindsey is detected, a switch over to a secondary server at North Kesteven would take place.

A digitised backup is taken offsite at North Kesteven;

·      The Business Continuity Plan (BCP) holds all contact details for the Service Managers at WLDC.  Hard copies of this are kept at home for when they are required.

The BCP was last tested in January 2017.  Testing should take place at least once a year;

·      There are no outstanding creditors that have been retained over the first few months of this financial year.

Members, and the Section 151 Officer gave their thanks to the Financial Services Manager and her team for the work that went into the report.

RESOLVED that:

(1)        The Statement of Accounts have been reviewed and there were no concerns arising from the Financial Statements that needed to be brought to the attention of the Council;

(2)        The Statement of Accounts for 2016/17 be approved;

(3)        The Section 151 Officer and the Chairman of Governance and Audit Committee can certify the letter of representation to KPMG, on completion of the audit.