Agenda item

To consider a progress report on the recommendations made in the internal audit report of Children’s Services Financial Systems issued on the 16 August 2022.

Mr Chris Coyle, Assistant Director of Operations - Children’s Social Care, presented a report on progress against the recommendations made in the internal audit report of Children’s Services Financial Systems issued on the 16 August 2022.

He explained that following the audit, work had been undertaken to ensure that all necessary information was captured on the Mosaic recording system. This would assist in enabling Children’s Services in registering all spending against individual children, allowing a better understanding of how money is spent in each case and its effectiveness.

The development of the Mosaic system was being undertaken and it was expected that this work and the necessary testing and staff training would be complete by early September 2023. Mr Coyle added that the Children’s Services financial team had also been involved in the commissioning of the system.

Compliance with the Scheme of Delegation was also discussed with Mr Coyle explaining that approval for spending had been reviewed to ensure that responsibility for approvals was in place and undertaken correctly. He further informed the Committee that the Mosaic System would be developed so that repeat costs could not be automatically renewed for a period longer than six weeks. This would ensure that repeat costs had to be re-entered after this time and allow ongoing monitoring of such costs and their effectiveness. In support of this a flowchart had been created to inform staff of the steps needed to approve spending and highlighting individuals responsible under the Scheme of Delegation.

The Committee noted that in addition to this, the audit had made recommendations that a Financial Framework be developed. Mr Coyle reported that the framework was being developed and the Committee asked that confirmation be provided once this had taken place.

Mr Steve Thompson, Director of Resources, also explained that although he held responsibility for agreeing the Scheme of Delegation the specific responsibility for financial decision making lay primarily with services. This was because such decisions required the service specific knowledge that officers within those services possessed. He added that the Council’s Finance teams system, Tech One, was linked to the Mosaic system and allowed an overview of spending, but also highlighted that Children’s Services provided value for money and that this had been demonstrated by the services performance when benchmarked against comparable local authorities.

The Committee noted that there had been a delay in the implementation of the internal audit’s recommendations. Mr Coyle explained that this had been the result of the need to implement the new Mosaic system first before the audit recommendations could be implemented. Although it was stated that the system had already been successfully implemented within Adult Services, Ms Kate Aldridge, Head of Corporate Delivery, Performance and Commissioning, reported that the Children Services element of the system had not be activated at the time of procurement as this was not considered appropriate. However, the increased functionality of the system had meant that implementation within Children Services had been undertaken.

Members also considered what challenged existed to ensuring the implementation of the Mosaic system by September 2023, with Mr Coyle reporting that the main challenges were the need to ensure all staff had training. However, he stated that officers were confident that the system would be implemented by September as planned.

Resolved: That

1. The report on progress against the recommendations made by the Internal Audit of Children’s Services Financial Systems be noted; and
2. That confirmation of the development of a Financial Framework for Children’s Services be provided to the Committee once complete.