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22 June 2023
Sometimes, just sometimes, I wish I could turn up to a Council meeting and all the ducks would be in a row.
The agenda would be circulated early with no surprises. It would be nice and short with all the papers included in the pack. The papers would be clear and concise covering all the issues.
All I would have to do is turn up for say an hour, participate in a constructive debate, exercise my judgement and vote (preferably watched by well- informed and interested residents who would be so enthralled by the Council, they would make an immediate application to be co-opted.)
Dream on.
The agenda for the last Council meeting on 20 June did come out quite early but there were 33 items. The meeting lasted until 9.45pm
There was lots of good stuff on the agenda but the most critical items were the Annual Governance Statement and the Accounting Statements for 2022/3, plus their supporting documents. Councils are legally required to approve these Statements in compliance with set procedures and deadlines. I understand HPC’s deadline is the end of June.
This blog covers only these items on the agenda. I will cover the other items when I have time.
However, I am having a real problem understanding what I can tell you.
The papers for the meeting have not been put on HPC’s website and they were circulated to councillors with a byline saying:-
“The content of this email is confidential and intended for the recipient specified in message only. It is strictly forbidden to share any part of this message with any third party, without a written consent of the sender.”
So I assume I cannot disclose to you what is in the Council papers, although the agenda does say that you can ask the Clerk if you would like to view the public appendices.
So if I am to respect the confidentiality of the Council, all I can tell you is what was actually said at the meeting not what was in the papers (unless of course someone referred to what was in the papers).
I hope you are following this.
I can tell you that the Council spent considerable time discussing the Annual Governance Statement and Accounting Statements for 2022/3 but in the end could not come to a decision. Because of the legal deadlines, the issues will be discussed again at an Extraordinary Council meeting on Monday 26 June at 7.30pm at the Council offices.
The agenda for the Extraordinary meeting is on HPC’s website but the supporting papers are not. These papers have been sent to councillors with the same message as above i.e. that it is strictly forbidden to share them.
So I can tell you very little more about next Monday’s meeting.
But if you are interested, here’s my recollection of the discussion on 20 June.
The Annual Governance Statement 2022/3 has to be completed in compliance with the law. It requires councils to confirm whether, during 2022/3, Council had: -
1. effective financial arrangements in place;
2. an adequate system for preventing fraud and corruption;
3. taken all reasonable steps to comply with the law and proper practices which could have a significant financial impact;
4. allowed electors to exercise their rights;
5. assessed and managed the risks to the council;
6. maintained an effective system of internal audit;
7. taken appropriate action on all matters raised in reports by the internal and external auditors; and
8. considered litigation, liabilities etc.
These are known as assertions and Council is required to confirm these assertions, or not, with a tick in a yes or no box. If it ticks no, Council has to explain why not.
The Council’s Responsible Financial Officer is required to present a report to Council giving recommendations as to whether to tick the yes or no box, with supporting evidence, for each assertion. HPC’s RFO is Cllr Stan Jones.
The papers, which came out to councillors late on the Friday before the meeting, recommended that Council confirm all the assertions except No 3. This recommendation was made in the light of a meeting on the Friday with the internal auditor.
I commented at the beginning of the meeting that Council was required to take an honest and objective view about what happened last year. If it didn’t, it would lose credibility with residents. I thought Council should tick no to assertions 1, 2, 3 and 7.
I said I was relieved that the RFO had recommended Council should tick the no box for assertion 3 as it meant I did not have to look at the evidence for this assertion; I could let the internal auditor’s comments make the argument.
However, it then emerged that this recommendation by the RFO was an administrative mistake; the recommendation should have been to confirm all the assertions except assertion 2, not assertion 3.
I also explained my concerns about inaccuracies in the evidence. I had not had time to look at all the evidence provided to support the assertions (no-one could expect a councillor to this) but what I had checked contained significant inaccuracies. And it worried me that the evidence provided to Council recommending approval under a statutory process was significantly incorrect.
Other councillors had been concerned before the meeting that the internal auditor’s report would only be available at the meeting. In the event, it wasn’t available at all until after the meeting.
As far as the Accounting Statements are concerned, all I can tell you, without breaching confidentiality, is that the balance carried over this year (the reserves) is about £50,000 more than last year i.e. from £399,000 to £448,000.
Guidance from the National Association of Local Councils says councils “have no specific right to accumulate funds via the precept. All reserves should be reviewed and justified regularly (i.e. at least annually). It is good practice to transparently publish both the level and rationale of all reserves.”
This means Council is expected to explain on the statutory Annual Statements why its reserves are greater than twice the Council’s income from local taxation.
I said I could not attempt an explanation for the level of the reserves because Council has still not received the financial outcome from 2022/3 i.e. its income and expenditure against its budget. How could Council explain why it its reserves had increased by £50,000 if it didn’t know what it had spent compared to what it budgeted? I have been asking for this information for months.
I had also pointed out before the meeting that the asset register needed to be approved - and the version in the supporting papers was incomplete because it did not include HPC’s land.
As I said, it will all be discussed again next Monday.
Oh, to have all the ducks in a row.