Issue - meetings

The Head of Strategic Finance and Property introduced the report, explaining that it related to the Council’s capital scheme to provide temporary accommodation for rough sleepers at The Rectory in Stanstead Abbotts. He said that the scheme’s grant provider, Homes England had initiated an audit, which was carried out by the Shared Internal Audit Service. This audit determined that two breaches of Homes England’s grant conditions had occurred. The first breach resulted from a building control certificate not being submitted in a timely way. The second breach resulted from the Council submitting its final payment claim one day ahead of the formal certification of practical completion.

The Head of Strategic Finance and Property listed the changes which the Housing and Health Department had put into place following this audit to avoid any such reoccurrences. These included the use of a single name project manager, and the role of project sponsor being undertaken by the Head of Service. He added that the Homes England process had been new to staff, and that lessons had been learnt.

Councillor Alder said that it was good to see from the report that although mistakes had been made the Council would still be able to make bids for future funding.

The Chairman said that the report gave reassurance that measures were now in place to ensure that such mistakes would not happen again.

The Shared Internal Audit Manager said that it was an unusual piece of work for the service to be asked to do. He said that Homes England had asked the service to carry out the audit on their behalf, but had provided a checklist with the key lines of enquiry for the auditor. He explained that this checklist consisted of mainly yes or no answers to questions which were then submitted to Homes England via an online portal. The Shared Internal Audit Manager said that they were therefore unable to know what judgement Homes England would make until they made their report to the Council.       

RESOLVED – that the report be considered and received.