27 September (Part 1) - Audit plaudits
Bexley’s Audit Committee met on Wednesday evening and as befits the sober
subject matter the meeting was a sober affair bereft of the fireworks seen the previous
evening at the Health Committee meeting.
Chaired as usual by councillor Steven Hall, he probably disappoints the Bexley
Action Group members present because of the total absence of petty dictatorship. His
committee of four councillors (one was absent) is assisted by Committee Officer
Mike Summerskill who efficiently looks after everyone including members of the
public. The accounts were signed off within the first 15 minutes and the 346 page Agenda
presented to the committee was devoured within the hour. To be honest the
latter is a guess as I could only stay for 35 minutes but the committee was well
on its way to wrapping up by then. Why the accounts are signed off before the auditors
report is heard is a mystery to me.
John Peters, the Deputy Director of Finance, said the council’s reserves had
risen above £8 million which councillor Howard Marriner reminded us is only a
week’s expenditure. Mr. Peters said there were budget pressures on children’s
services. Councillor Malik expressed some disquiet about the PFI contracts and
spoke of renegotiation. Mr. Peters didn’t seem to think that was very likely and
believed the costs were indexed at 3%.
This year the audit was done by Grant Thornton, the Audit Commission having been
killed off by the present government. Those 346 pages show that audit costs
fell to £213,000 for 2012/13 from £279,000 the year before. My accountancy
knowledge is zero but I was surprised to hear they only sample the accounts with
the aid of their home-brew software. Maybe that is
how their costs can be reduced.
Sue Exton gave a clear and concise explanation of the auditor’s role and findings
and she had me fooled for a moment because the performance of Bexley’s management
females is usually dire but I was being silly, Ms. Exton is a Grant Thornton
employee. She said that her company found no more to complain about in Bexley than
they had in other London boroughs. There was some concern that Bexley’s ‘journal
authorisation controls’ are lax and my enquiries reveal that is something to do
with not having invoices and expense claims checked by senior officers. Well that would explain
Ian Clement getting away with everything wouldn’t it? You’d think they would have
fixed that by now.
Only two other members of the public were present and as usual I knew the name
and address of both of them.
Note: The Health Committee meeting is not yet reported here.