Agenda item

Report of the Director – Finance and Corporate Services

Mr Armstrong from BDO, the Council’s Internal Auditors, presented the Internal Audit Progress Report Quarter 1. He referred Members of the Group to the table on page 16 of the report which showed the progress made in the year to date and confirmed that audits for Q1 audit had been completed and that audits for Q2 were in progress.

Mr Armstrong referred to page 14 of the report and noted a matter raised at the previous meeting as to whether the Internal Audit Plan should be amended to include something on licensing. Mr Amstrong said that following discussion with Officers including the licensing team, it was felt that the risk was relatively low and as such the report should not be changed for this year, but that a review on licensing more broadly would be included in the Internal Audit report for 2026/27.

Councillor Thomas asked about fees, including additional fees for events. The Head of Finance explained that these were annual fees for licences, being both a standard fee and also an enhanced fee which could be charged for circumstances which met certain triggers and required additional work by the Licensing Team, for example a large event with a large number of attendees.

Mr Armstrong referred to page 17 of the report which detailed the audit report for Streetwise management which was the first review of this quarter. He noted than an opinion of moderate on design and substantial for effectiveness had been found, with one medium and two low recommendations. He said that the focus had been on governance, performance management and the street cleansing function. He said that overall opinion was positive and that the medium finding related to documentation and audit trails for reactive requests for street cleansing.

Mr Armstrong said that the second audit completed had been in relation to Council Tax and NNDR which, due to it being a statutory function of the Council, was generally audited every three to four years. He explained that the scope of the audit included billing for Council Tax, collections and application of discounts and relief and that substantial assurance had been provided for both design and effectiveness which was consistent with the previous audit in 2020/21. He said that there were only two low findings, in relation to checks to prevent fraud of refunds for historically rebanded council tax properties and also two cases where council tax hadn’t been issued in a timely manner to new build properties.

Councillor G Wheeler asked about rebanding of properties and Mr Armstrong said that when Council Tax was introduced around 1993 every property was given a banding, and that in cases where a property had had its banding since changed to a lower band, the current and any previous owners would be entitled to a refund. He explained, however, the previous owners may not know that they were due a refund and as such there was some vulnerability, with one council having an employee who had stolen those funds. The Director for Finance and Corporate Services confirmed that the revaluation was done by the Valuation Office and not by the Council.

Councillor Thomas asked whether the audit had looked at properties which had changed from Council Tax to business rates and vice versa. Mr Armstrong said that they were not included in the scope but that new properties becoming eligible for Council Tax or people moving into existing residential properties were included.

Councillor Wells asked whether charges for maintenance services affected Council Tax charges and the Head of Finance said that Council Tax was separate to management fees.

Councillor Polenta asked about Streetwise KPIs recording and Mr Armstrong replied that the recommendation was raised in relation to potentially strengthening some of the KPIs to include more quantitative measures and better documentation of activity on the system.

Mr Causton asked about management responses to recommendations and inclusion of those in the report. Mr Armstrong said that Internal Audit was flexible in terms of its reporting templates and that it had been agreed that the aim for Rushcliffe was to keep reporting streamlined.  

It is RESOLVED that the Governance Scrutiny Group considered the quarter 1 progress report for 2025/26 (Appendix A) prepared by the Council’s Internal Auditor and note the proposed inclusion of Licensing Income in the 2026/27 audit plan.