Issue - meetings

To receive an update on the Shared Internal Audit & Investigation Service

The committee received a received a report, set out in agenda pages 33 to 66, which provided background to the Shared Internal Audit & Investigation Service.

The report outlined that this was the first shared service that Overview & Scrutiny had considered. The service had been operational for 7 years since 2014, and was a shared service between Wokingham Borough Council (WBC) and the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead (RBWM). At the time of the service’s inception, both Authorities had internal Audit & Investigation services. Both services had suffered from being small and hard to recruit to due to the specialised nature of their work. Moving towards a shared service model had provided resilience for both Authorities, in addition to a wider pool of resources. It had been hoped to bring in other Authorities into the shared service, however the immediate drive was to provide resilience and other operational benefits. The Shared Service has undertaken regular contracted work for neighbouring Authorities.

Andrew Moulton, Assistant Director – Governance, attended the meeting to answer Member queries.

During the ensuing discussions, Members realised the following points and queries:

·           Was there a particular reason as to why other Local Authorities had not joined the Shared Service? Officer response - A number of lengthy discussions had taken place with our Berkshire neighbours over time, and there had been a variety of reasons as to why no other Authorities had joined the Shared Service to date. Opportunities were still being explored, and officers had not counted out the prospect of further Authorities joining the Shared Service.

·           Did WBC make money from contracted work? Officer response – Yes, these works generated an income stream for WBC.

·           Did the Shared Service work efficiently? Officer response – The team as a whole was very focussed on delivering a great service with good value for the Borough. This was a Council run service, however there was a commercial mind-set within the work that was carried out. In addition, the service was accountable to both WBC and RBWM Audit Committees, and any efficiency concerns would be considered by Members via these forums.

·           There were some concerns relating to how costs of other Shared Services were distributed amongst partners. Was this a concern for this particular Shared Service? Officer response – Officers were aware of these concerns, however in this case all costs and distributions were fairly transparent, and the Shared Service had met its core principles of providing operational efficiencies and resilience within the service.

·           It was noted that at the time of inception of the Shared Service, the responsibilities of the service were different. For example, the service was no longer responsible for benefit fraud.

·           The Committee thanked officers for providing the original business case, as this was useful background information for the Committee to consider.

·           Which Local Authorities had Wokingham carried out contracted works for? Officer response – WBC had provided support for the Bracknell Audit team for a number of years to ensure that they could complete their project plan.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 69