Appendix A
UPDATES ON IMPLEMENTATION OF INTERNAL
AUDIT RECOMMENDATIONS – September 2012
NN/11/12 Development and Building Control
Recommendation 1 - Review of Procedural Guidance.
The process maps for planning applications and enforcement referred to under that
recommendation were last reviewed in April/May 2010 and new pre-application and
“Do I need planning permission” process maps were done in April 2012. They are
likely to be reviewed again when we look at our business processes following the
management changes and the outcome of the Pay and Grading Review.
This low priority recommendation has now been dealt with.
Recommendation 2 – National Requirements Check.
It is proposed that quarterly checks are carried out on a random set of applications to
monitor checking against the National requirements Checklist. To begin July 2012.
This low priority recommendation has now been dealt with.
Recommendation 3 – Monitoring of Outstanding Planning Enforcement Cases.
Managers have set up monthly caseload update meetings with the Enforcement
officers. There are quarterly reports to Development Committee on cases more than
3 months old. The team still currently has limited resources although at a recent
meeting of the Scrutiny Committee a report on the teams’ workload was presented
and the provision of additional temporary resources was agreed to assist with the
case load backlog. The most appropriate form of additional resource is being
considered.
Several meetings have been held (and will continue to be held) with the complete
group of officers involved in the enforcement functional to discuss process/procedural
matters.
Crystal Reports are used by the team and managers to monitor workloads and
progress.
Actions have been undertaken in response to this medium priority recommendation
and caseload monitoring will need to be on-going.
Recommendation 3 – Reconciliation of Income Received by the Planning
Department
Meetings have taken place regarding this audit recommendation and it was agreed
that a monthly report from the general ledger be produced by the Accountancy
Section and given to the Technical Officer (Development Management) who will
produce a Chrystal report regarding the fees entered on the Planning Departments
Acolaid system and compare the two reports to ensure that the amounts can be
reconciled to the General Ledger. A further meeting will be arranged to determine if
the system is working or if any further work needs to be undertaken.
Appendix A
Recommendation 5 – Legal fees for Section 106 Agreements
A revised time sheet has been produced to ensure that an accurate record of the
time spent by the Planning Legal Manager on the preparation of S106 Agreements is
kept, that the charges are calculated in accordance with the current charging rates
and the correct invoice raised and a record kept on the appropriate file. The
monitoring of the recovery of all payments in relation to invoices raised within the
Authority is done by the Exchequer Section and any non-payments are advised to
the relevant Department for further instructions as to how to proceed. Updated
procedure notes have been done.
This recommendation has now been dealt with.
Recommendation 6 – Monitoring of Section 106 Agreements
Several meetings have been held (and will continue to be held) with staff involved in
the Section 106 process. Written guidance on Section 106 procedures has been
prepared and documents amended as necessary and further work is being
undertaken regarding the use of the Acolaid system in recording Section 106
Agreements and monitoring conditions and trigger points for compliance.
The issue of detailing the roles and responsibilities for monitoring the key
requirements of Section 106 Agreements is currently on hold pending the outcome of
the current BPR relating to PA’s and Democratic Services.
Building Control
The Building Control and Access Manager reports that there is only one outstanding
low priority recommendation relating to the updating of procedural and work practice
notes. This is an on-going process and is being undertaken as and when time
permits. When updates are completed the date is recorded on the document for
future reference.
Computer Audits
NN0917 Cedar E-Financials, Password file encryption key: this will be reviewed
as part of the system upgrade later in the year. The revised deadline will be 30
November 2012.
It needs to be noted that the following recommendations were all allocated to Kate
Wilson who has left the Authority, so alternative arrangements are in place to finish
the outstanding recommendations when possible:
NN1022 Asset Register update, this is nearly complete but not yet finished due to
availability of staff. Kate Wilson has left, plus a member of the team is off long term
sick, meaning that the priority is on fixing day to day user calls. The scheduled
completion date is 30 September 2012.
NN1117 Intrusion Detection system. The licence for this functionality has been
provided as part of the new firewall installed in June 2012. It will be switched on once
the MPLS internet connection is not the primary link to Kings Lynn for the Revenues
Appendix A
and Benefits service, to ensure that it doesn’t cause any unscheduled disruption to
service.
NN1117 Network Strategy. The new Corporate ICT strategy is still in draft and on
hold pending the completion of the Management restructure. A Technical
Infrastructure guide which includes the Network strategy will be updated once the
strategy has been agreed. To enable the ICT service to plan in the meantime an
internal IT Technical plan is in use. These documents do exist and can be inspected
on request.
NN/11/01 Environmental Services (Information from TEN system)
Procedural Guidance
Procedural guidance has been reviewed and updated and is subject to periodic
review under Departmental Quality Management system to ISO 9001:2008. BSI have
tested the document control under the standard and are satisfied that this is
adequately managed.
Audit Trail for Licence Fees
Some problems.
Register of Contaminated Land Sites
All potential contaminated land site the Council are aware of are on the CLAND
system. 99% of sites have been inspected and risk assessed, only outstanding ones
are where access is proving difficult. Any new sites will be entered and risk assessed
as they are identified.
Contract with Norstead Kennels
Contract awarded and signed.
Pest Express Contract
Updated schedule for contract being agreed with Pest Express, specifically around
reporting of jobs received and time between visits, prior to formal contract paperwork
being signed.
NN/12/03 Waste Management Contract
Performance Indicator Review and Monitoring
The primary KPI being applied to the assessment of the performance of the contract
has been determined to be the number of Defaults issued under the contract in
respect of Cleansing activities. This covers the following functional areas: Street
Cleansing; Litter Bin Emptying, Emptying of Dog Waste Bins and cleaning of Public
Conveniences. The target for the service is 0 (Nil). A Default may arise because of
an irredeemable breach, a serious service failure whose remedy is insufficient to
overcome the failure, and failure to comply with a Rectification issued by the
Authorised Officer to remedy a defect in the service. Details have been agreed for
Appendix A
the monitoring of fuel use on the contract and that a base level of 1 December 2011
will be used. The KPI for the number of missed bins will be maintained for the year
as set out at the previous levels. Rationalisation of KPI measures allows greater
focus on necessary outcomes at this stage of the contract. Cleansing and waste
proforma monitoring sheets have been developed and are completed on monitoring
visits by NNDC staff. Reporting is through the Performance Monitoring Report,
Cabinet and Scrutiny as well as the Strategic Board.
System Integration and Validation Checks
The Improvement Plan for the year will be used to address the potential conversion
of NNDC to Whitespace for the collection, storage and sharing of data to remove the
risks associated with data integration which is proving less than satisfactory.
Trade Waste Arrears Recovery
Migration to the use of Whitespace for trade waste management as mentioned item
above will lead to a more consistent ability to track and resolve issues debt recovery.