Agenda and minutes

Following the passing of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II a minute’s silence was observed at the start of the meeting as a mark of respect.

Members are asked to declare any interests in the items under consideration and in doing so state:

(1) the type of interest concerned either a

(a)   personal interest

(b)   prejudicial interest

(c)    disclosable pecuniary interest (DPI)

and

(2) the nature of the interest concerned

If any member requires advice on declarations of interests, they are advised to contact the Head of Democratic Governance in advance of the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest made on this occasion.

To agree the minutes of the last meeting of the Audit Committee held on 21 July 2022 as a true and correct record.

Resolved: To agree that the minutes of the meeting held on 21 July 2022 be signed by the Chair as a true and correct record.

To receive a verbal update from Mr Steve Thompson, Director of Resources, on the Annual Statement of Accounts.

Mr Steve Thompson, Director of Resources, provided a verbal update on progress to sign-off the Annual Statement of Accounts. He informed the Board that the two-year delay in signing-off the accounts had been due to national issues relating to infrastructure accounting. In response to this, the Chartered Institute for Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) had provided a solution that would allow accounts to be signed off up until 2024. This would act as a stop gap during which time a system for infrastructure accountancy would be developed.

However before this could be implemented Mr Thompson informed the Committee that a statutory instrument would be required which was expected to be passed in October 2022. Once this had occurred Deloitte, External Auditors, would undertake an audit of the 2021 and 2022 accounts. Following this, Mr Thompson confirmed that the 2022 Audited Accounts would then be brought to the Committee in early 2023.

Ms Nicola Wright, External Auditor, added that audit work on the 2021 accounts had begun and that this work would be completed once the statutory instrument was in place.

The Committee asked if the public would be able to query the accounts during this time and what information would be publically available. Mr Thompson responded that all the information in the accounts was publically available and included in reports to the Executive and Council such as the Provisional Financial Outturn reporting. Members of the public could also utilise freedom of information requests to access information.

With respect of a possible solution for infrastructure accounting in future accounts from 2024, Members queried if this would require substantial additional resources to undertake. Mr Thompson replied that it would have to be seen what the CIPFA solution was before the necessary determination could be made but that there was currently sufficient resources to undertake accounting work.

Resolved: That the update be noted.

To consider a progress report on individual risks identified in the Council’s Strategic Risk Register and to consider the controls being implemented to manage the strategic risk relating to strategy.

The Committee considered a deep dive into the Strategic Risk ‘Strategy’ which included the sub-risks (a) ‘Poor health and wellbeing outcomes’, (b) ‘Poor educational attainment’ and (c) ‘Provision for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) is inadequate’.

Dr Arif Rajpura, Director of Public Health, and Mr John Blackledge, Director of Community and Environmental Services, provided an update in respect of sub-risk (a). In terms of public health work, Dr Rajpura informed the Committee that when considering trends Blackpool was behind national averages. He explained that the Council had measures to address health and wellbeing issues in Blackpool, in the long term these featured projects to improve issues such as poor housing. In the medium term programmes included drug rehabilitation, while programmes to encourage healthier living would improve health and wellbeing outcomes in the short term.

Dr Rajpura added that the Covid pandemic had delayed a lot of the intended work but that it had been reinstated since the lifting of restrictions and significant work had been taking place. He also noted that the intervention into housing being undertaken would have a substantial positive long term impact on health and wellbeing in Blackpool.

Mr Blackledge informed the Committee that within their directorate the main streams of work related to health and wellbeing were within the Green and Blue Infrastructure Strategy and Leisure Services. Closer working between Leisure Services and Public Health had meant that leisure providers were able to link with health services and programmes to secure better outcomes. Leisure Services also worked with Sport England to encourage more people into physical activity and was looking at how this work could engage with people known to Public Health, Children’s Services and Adult Services. Mr Blackledge also reported that encouraging greater use of communal spaces such as parks for leisure activity was a further important stream of work for Leisure Services. He added that parks needed to be used better across Blackpool, including each receiving a development plan, and but noted that Stanley Park had won English park of the year for the third consecutive year.

Significant work related to the Green and Blue Infrastructure Strategy was underway with Mr Blackledge informing the Committee that it would be connected with the aims of the Town Centre Strategy and work with planning policy. This work was intended to embed the strategy, and its intended health and wellbeing outcomes, into growth and prosperity work.

The Committee discussed the recent appointment of Karen Smith, Director of Adult Services, as the Interim Director of the Integrated Care Board. Concern was raised regarding what risks this pooling of work could present to services in Blackpool. Dr Rajpura explained that the Lancashire Plan Place Based Partnership would look at how Blackpool services could be integrated and that Ms Smith’s role would be to supervise this work. He added that resources had been put in place for her to undertake this new role without it negatively impacting her role in Adult Services. There was however a risk  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

To consider a progress report on the recommendations made in the internal audit report of the Care at Home Service (internal provision) issued on the 11 October 2021.

Mr Nick Henson, Head of Adult Care and Support, presented a report on progress made against the recommendations identified as part of the Internal Audit of Care at Home. He informed the Committee that the audit had taken place in October 2021 when Care at Home had been subject to Covid-19 restrictions which had affected how the service was delivered. Training during this time for example could only be delivered online, however since the lifting of restrictions this had where possible returned to face-to-face delivery.

With respect of Recommendation 2, which recommended a systematic method for carrying out quality reviews on service user packs and medication records to ensure consistency in quality and recorded information, Mr Henshaw reported that a review was in place but more quality assurance was needed. However work to meet this recommendation was underway.

In regards to, recommendation 3 ‘that the Medication Action Plan outstanding actions were followed up and required changes incorporated into service delivery’, the Committee was informed that new operational procedures had been developed and were awaiting sign-off. This was expected by the end of September 2022.

The use of iPool in relation to Recommendation 8 which recommended the updating of training logs urgently was discussed. Mr Henshaw informed the Committee that a manual fix was in place to allow staff to screen shot and print off manual evidence of the completion of training modules as these could not be provided electronically. No technological fix for this issue had yet been identified however consideration of using the iTrent human resources system for iPool to feed into was being undertaken. It was expected that this would be resolved by the end of 2023.

The Committee queried if service providers had been impacted by the recruitment issues being experienced by the social care sector. In response to this, Mr Henshaw explained that this was an issue being experienced nationally and that the Council was working with the Department for Work and Pensions to attract more candidates. This included the offer of a guaranteed interview for applicants.

Members were also informed that there had been no Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspections but that all services had previously been rated “Good”. The CQC had suspended inspections due to Covid-19 but had undertaken some checks online. It was also known that the CQC would be changing its inspection framework once face-to-face inspections resumed to make this more focussed on certain themes.

Resolved: That the update be noted.

To consider the Committee’s updated Action Tracker.

The Committee gave consideration to the updated Action Tracker.

Resolved: To note the Action Tracker.

To note the date and time of the next meeting of the Committee as 20 October 2022, commencing at 6.00pm.

The date and time of the next meeting was confirmed as Wednesday, 20 October 2022 at 6pm.