Agenda item

To present the minutes of the previous meeting of the Governance and Audit Committee held on 9 February, 2021.

The minutes of the previous meeting of the Governance and Audit Committee held on 9 February, 2021 were presented and were confirmed as correct.

Arising thereon –

•           The Head of Audit and Risk confirmed that she had been in contact with the HR Training and Development Team to ask that a reminder be sent to those members of the Governance and Audit Committee who had not yet completed the cyber security awareness E-learning module of the need to do so as it is mandatory training. In response to comments by Members, she offered to ask the HR Training and Development Team to re-issue the reminder in case some Members had missed the original reminder and that in order to make access easier she would also request that guidance for accessing the E-Learning Portal via a laptop be included. The Committee accepted the offer.

ACTION: Head of Audit and Risk to ask the HR Training and Development Team to re-issue to members of the Governance and Audit Committee a reminder of the need to complete the Cyber Security Awareness E-learning module if they have not already done so, and to provide guidance on accessing the E-Learning Portal via laptop.

•           Reference was made to the delays in certifying Housing Benefits claims which was raised in the Audit Summary presented to the Committee’s previous meeting - specifically whether  progress has been made to enable the DWP to release  the outstanding subsidies  of approximately £5m and the impact of this on the Council’s financial position.

The Director of Function (Resources) and Section 151 Officer clarified that the Officer within the Finance Service who leads on finalising the subsidy claims is also engaged with issuing Council Tax bills which task has taken up a good part of March and the beginning of April; an agency support worker who was helping with the testing work for the subsidy claims also left for another position which meant that this gap had to be filled leading to some delay. Nevertheless, the aim remains to complete the 2018/19 Housing Benefit subsidy claim by the end of May, 2021 for which External Audit’s qualification letter has been drafted; the testing work on the 2019/20 subsidy claim has been undertaken and the audit will be completed once the 2018/19 claim has been certified. However, the finalisation of the 2018/19 subsidy claim will of itself release a substantial proportion of the £5m total outstanding subsidies held by the DWP. Completing the 2019/20 claim by the end of June would then bring the process back on track. The draft pre-audit subsidy claim for 2020/21 has then to be submitted by the 30 April deadline with an audit completion date of 30 November, 2021; meeting these targets will  bring the Housing Subsidy claims process up to date.

The Director of Function (Resources)/Section 151 Officer further advised that in smaller authorities such as Anglesey it is not always possible to have a number of staff dedicated to Housing benefit subsidy work;  the responsible officer at Anglesey has other duties as well. Additionally, the Housing Subsidy claim is complex and requires detailed knowledge of how the claim is compiled; as such it is not work that can be easily taken up by another member of staff. Errors in compiling the claim will lead to audit queries and qualifications down the line.

The Committee accepted and noted the update provided.