Agenda item

To present the minutes of the previous meeting of the Audit and Governance Committee held on 12 February, 2019.

The minutes of the previous meeting of the Audit and Governance Committee held on 12^th February, 2019, were presented and were confirmed as correct.

Arising thereon –

•           The Head of Audit and Risk reported with regard to school dinner money debt that she had been in contact with Cardiff City Council and Rhondda Cynon Taf Council [as the councils with some of the lowest level of school dinner money debt among those councils that had responded to a BBC survey on school dinner money debt in Welsh Councils in 2017/18] in order to gain insight into their practices for keeping the school dinner money debt level down. The Officer said that she had been able to establish that Cardiff City Council’s total school dinner money arrears were in fact higher than the figure published in the BBC article which did not include all non-cash debt. Rhondda Cynon Taf Council made available its protocol for dealing with school dinner money debt which has been forwarded to the Project Manager within the Learning Service who is reviewing the school dinner money payment system.

The Head of Function (Resources)/Section 151 Officer said that having collated the data at the end of the Easter term, he was now able to report on the Isle of Anglesey Council’s school dinner money debt position. The Council is owed a total of £48,084 in school dinner money of which £38,046 is on the schools’ registers meaning these arrears are still being dealt with by the schools. The average balance per school is £906 with the highest balance being £6,978. A total of 89 invoices to the value of £10,037 remain outstanding - this is where the debt has been transferred from the schools to the Council’s Income Team for recovery. The average balance is £113 and the highest is £410.  In terms of Anglesey’s comparative position, it is not dissimilar to that of the authorities listed in the BBC survey. The Learning Service is looking at the school dinner money policy and the treatment of social services debt in conjunction with schools and the Finance Service. An influencing factor is the roll-out of Universal Credit in that under the previous system of benefits, applications for free school meals would have been determined quickly, now families’ application for free school meals is not determined until their Universal Credit application has been confirmed which can take up to several weeks. The Authority is considering how best to deal with those children in the period pending the determination of their families’ Universal Credit application in terms of charging or not charging for school meals during this time and the repercussions of one or the other course. This along with other issues will form part of the policy review.

Given that in terms of size, Anglesey is a relatively small authority, the Committee queried whether in the region of £50k of school dinner money debt is considered acceptable. The Committee also sought to establish whether it was possible to gauge the impact of Universal Credit on school meals debt levels in those authorities where the new benefit has been introduced compared to Anglesey.

The Head of Function (Resources)/Section 151 Officer said that whilst it is important that monies due are collected and that debt is kept to a minimum, in the context of the income collected from  the 3,000 to 4,000 school meals that are provided  on a daily basis at a charge of £2.50 per meal (disregarding the 1,500 approximately entitled to free school meals and those bringing their own lunch to school), and compared with other debts owing to the Council, £48k is not a massive sum. A judgement has to be made about the value of recovering a debt having regard to the amount owing set against the cost of recovery, and sometimes the conclusion is reached that pursuing a debt further is uneconomical especially in the case of smaller debts. Also, the families having difficulty paying for school meals are low income families who are just above the benefits threshold and who may owe more than one debt to the Council. Debt recovery in these circumstances can be difficult. The level of school dinner money debt is therefore not unreasonable in light of all the contributing factors.

With regard to the effect of Universal Credit on the debt level, Universal Credit combines both existing in-work and out- of-work benefits meaning that some families now entitled to free school meals as recipients of Universal Credit may not have been entitled under the former system wherein in-work and out of work benefits were separate. Welsh Government has introduced protection for families on Universal Credit in receipt of free school meals before 1 January, 2019; there is therefore a significant number of families in authorities where Universal Credit has been implemented who are in receipt of this protection. However, because Universal Credit was not introduced in Anglesey until December, 2018, the number of families benefiting from the protection is fewer because prior to January, 2019 they came under the old system. A comparison between Anglesey and authorities where Universal Credit has been operative for some time can therefore be misleading because of the number of families in receipt of the protection in those authorities.

•           The Committee sought clarification of how soon would it be provided with the self-evaluation questionnaire to assess the Committee’s level of compliance with CIPFA’s new guidance on the role of Audit Committees.

The Head of Audit and Risk clarified that the questionnaire is a piece of work that the Welsh Chief Auditors Group is working on currently and will be in two parts – the one focusing on the skills and aptitude of individual members of the Audit Committee and the other focusing on the Committee’s collective effectiveness against its terms of reference. As it is a CIPFA generated document, a Welsh version needs to be created as well as ensuring that the questionnaire is relevant to Anglesey. Once this has been done, the questionnaire will be forwarded to the Committee’s members.

•           The Head of Audit and Risk clarified that whereas it had been the intention to present the Annual Insurance Report to this meeting of the Committee, the report will now be submitted to the Committee’s July meeting, the period from the end of the financial year on 31 March to the deadline for the submission of reports for this meeting being too short for the Insurance Company to provide the necessary information.

NO ADDITIONAL ACTION WAS PROPOSED WITH REGARD TO ANY OF THE MATTERS RAISED