Agenda item

7.1

The Director of Regeneration and Development Services introduced a report of the Executive Director, Place that provided an update on progress in addressing the outstanding actions identified in the 2014 follow up audit to the 2013 Internal Audit of Parking Services Income. The appendices to the report included the 2013 and 2014 Audit reports and an action tracker. The Parking Services Manager also attended the meeting for this item.

7.2

The Director explained that not all the recommendations from the 2013 audit had been implemented and there had been a maximum focus in addressing this and progress was set out in the action tracker. One of the lessons learnt had been that the audit process was critical to the business role of the service. He acknowledged that if the recommendations from the 2013 audit had been addressed then the service would not have had to deal with some of the subsequent issues.

7.3

The report also set out the change management process for Parking Services and the Director referred to the additional resources that had been invested to drive that process. The focus had been on the process, quality assurance and long term business needs of the service.

7.4

The Director reported on the positive progress that had been made but he acknowledged that more of the recommendations should have been actioned. Of the 18 recommendations identified in the follow-up report that had not been completed, ten had now been completed, six were on track to be completed in November/December and two had slipped but were due to be completed in early December 2014. He highlighted the significant amount of effort that had gone into dealing with the recommendations.

7.5

Officers responded to questions from members of the Committee.

7.5.1

The Director stated that the process for implementing the recommendations should have been undertaken quicker. Going forward, there was a quality assurance role and officers were driving the change process.

7.5.2

The Director indicated that officers had focussed on the high risk audit recommendations, how income was monitored and the trends. There was previously a focus on the day to day operation. Long term monitoring and a risk management plan had been put in place and there was a focus on areas susceptible to fraud. In terms of the slow progress in implementing the recommendations, the Parking Services Manager indicated that when additional resources had been brought in there was faster progress. The Director added that it was about being clear as a manager what were the top priorities.

7.5.3

The Assistant Director of Finance (Business Partnering and Internal Audit) responded to a question on whether she was satisfied with the direction of travel. She stated that Internal Audit had not validated any of the information in the progress report in order to be satisfied that the follow up audit had been taken into account. She would have preferred that the recommendations in the 2013 audit report had been implemented in a timely fashion and should have been prioritised. The Director of Regeneration and Development Services commented that there had been ongoing dialogue with Internal Audit and regular briefings.

7.5.4

In respect of the Civil Enforcement Officers’ handbook, the Director indicated that rather than just providing the handbook, it was about training and upskilling staff.

7.6

Resolved: That the Committee:-

(a)

notes the report and progress made to date on the outstanding actions from the follow-up audit of Parking Services Income;

(b)

endorses the actions of Regeneration and Development Services in the ongoing work to fully address the 2013 Parking Services Income Audit Report recommendations; and

(c)

notes that progress on the implementation of the audit recommendations would be included in the High Opinion Audit Tracker to be considered by the Committee at its meeting on 8 January 2015.