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KEYNSHAM TOWN COUNCIL

Minutes of the Internal Audit Review Committee held on Tuesday 7th November 2017 at 7.00 p.m. in the Town Council Offices

PRESENT: Councillors B Simmons (Chair), C Fricker, H MacFie, L O’Brien

Councillor B Elcome arrived at 7.20pm.

IN ATTENDANCE: Dr Cheryl Scott – Town Clerk

20. APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE

RESOLVED:

To receive apologies from Councillors D Biddleston, T Crouch, and K Simmons.

21. DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

There were none.

22. NON-DISCLOSABLE PECUNIARY INTERESTS

There were none.

23. DISPENSATIONS

There were no requests for Dispensations.

24. CONFIRMATION OF MINUTES

RESOLVED:

That the Minutes of the meeting held on 2nd August 2017 be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

25. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

There was none.

26. TERMS OF REFERENCE OF COMMITTEES

The Clerk had circulated a document containing proposed changes to the Terms of

Reference of the various Committees in order to clear up some confusion regarding

functions of each Committee, voting and non-voting membership, delegated powers

and when business needed to be referred back to Council.

The main changes were as follows:

(a)  Terms of Reference would now refer to all sections of the table for each Committee. The current section in each table entitled Terms of Reference would be re-named “Functions”.

(b)  Some Committees, particularly Personnel, were advisory only creating duplication of work as the matters discussed then had to be referred to Town Council before any decisions could be actioned. The Personnel Committee would have delegated powers to act on behalf of the Town Council over all aspects of staffing matters, even if it involved financial expenditure. By delegating responsibility for the Annual Salary budget to Personnel Committee this would give the Committee freedom to operate in recruitment and other staffing matters. The Committee would also have the power to delegate matters to the Clerk eg re-advertising for recruitment without having to wait for Full Council to approve a recommendation involving a financial element.

(c)  The Clerk made a further recommendation that all Committees should have a Vice Chairman as well as a Chairman.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

(i)  Personnel Committee – Delegated powers – add “and Annual Salary Budget” after “in relation to staffing matters”.

(ii)  Capital Projects Committee – Delegated powers – add “variations” after “design specification”.

(iii)  That the Arts Joint Committee consider at its January meeting (for approval at the Annual Town Council meeting in May) whether it was still necessary to be a Joint Committee with B&NES going forwards. The Audit Committee suggest the Terms of Reference should be changed to Arts Committee, with one B&NES officer and the B&NES Cabinet member being non-voting co-opted members and with other co-opted members as from time to time shall be elected by the Arts Committee. Quorum should be the same as for the rest of the Committees prevailing at the time (currently 4 voting members) and in future the Terms of Reference would be determined/approved by Full Council rather than the Committee.

(iv)  That all other Terms of Reference as amended be presented to the Annual Meeting of Town Council in May 2018 for approval.

(v)  That all Committees should have a Vice-Chairman as well as a Chairman, to be elected at the Annual Town Council meeting in May.

27. DECLARATION OF INTERESTS

As the new approved Code of Conduct included for declaration of both personal and pecuniary interests, the Clerk proposed a change to how this was detailed on the Agenda and minutes.

RECOMMENDATIONS:
(i) That there is one Agenda Item “declaration of Interests” to include personal, pecuniary, disclosable and non-disclosable interests.

(ii) That Interests declared are recorded in the minutes as follows:

Name / Item / Interests / Reason
Cllr X / 13 / Personal / Representative on Dial A Ride
Cllr Y / 14 / Pecuniary / KMFA Trustee
Cllr X / 15 / Non-disclosable pecuniary

28. DISTRIBUTION OF RESERVES

The Clerk had circulated information and analysis on the Town Council Bank Accounts as follows:

Accounts / April / May / June / July / August / Sept. / Oct.
Precept / Precept
Barclays
Current account / 39,101 / 35,300 / 35,127 / 60,618 / 35,418 / 34,565 / 39,470
Barclays Base Rate Tracker / 363,282 / 333,282 / 293,985 / 210,845 / 210,942 / 170,942 / 377,547
Barclays Base Rate Reward / 340,153 / 340,221 / 340,290 / 340,365. / 340,433 / 340,505 / 340,577
Public Sector Deposit fund / 50,607 / 50,607 / 50,616 / 50,627 / 50,635 / 50,651

The limit under the Financial Services Compensation scheme was £85,000 and Town Council had previously asked the Clerk to look into a safer distribution of the Town Council’s finances. There had been no withdrawals made from the Base Rate Reward since before December 2013 (earlier bank statements are now archived and need retrieving). The £340k represents the approx. value of General Reserves. The Council also had earmarked reserves of approx. £200k.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

(i)  That £340k in Base Rate Reward be redistributed amongst four new saver accounts/bonds

(ii)  That the Base Rate Reward account be used to accrue interest on the precept payments whilst ensuring liquidity and cash-flow required for the Town Council’s monthly expenditure was maintained.

29. SUPPLIER REVIEW

A draft spreadsheet was circulated to show the fields to be completed as part of a supplier review. The Committee were invited to feedback any comments or requests for other information to be included in the spreadsheet before the supplier review was conducted at the January Internal Audit meeting.

RECOMMENDATION:

To include sections for commenting on service level provision/performance review for each supplier and for when there were no alternative suppliers available.

30. FINANCIAL REGULATIONS

This was referred to the Committee from the Town Council meeting from when the Clerk was finding it difficult to obtain 3 quotes for bespoke service, and the wording of Financial Regulation 11.1.(a) (ii) only negated the need for 3 quotes for “specialist” services.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

The wording of FR11.1(a) (ii) should be amended by replacing the word “specialist” with “bespoke”.

31. NOMINAL CODE REVIEW

(a)  The Clerk had circulated a complete list of nominal codes currently used as part of the RBS Rialtas Accounting software. She drew attention to some of the new codes that had been introduced for the 2017/2018 budget and asked the Committee to consider if they wished any further nominal codes to be allocated to certain items of expenditure for further transparency.

(b)  The Clerk suggested that items of capital equipment brought for recreation grounds or other open spaces maintenance be allocated a separate code for grounds maintenance capital equipment rather than being included in general maintenance/running costs codings.

(c)  A new earmarked reserve would need to be created for replacement vehicles as per the Town Council meeting in October.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

(i)  To note the nominal codes as circulated/proposed

(ii)  To check with the accountant as to how long obsolete nominal codes needed to be kept for tax purposes.

32. GDPR UPDATE

The Clerk had circulated the results from a preliminary information audit referring to all types of personal data held (and how eg electronic or hard copy) by the Town Council pertaining to Councillors, staff and members of the public and what actions needed to be taken as part of compliance.

In respect of the appointment of a Data Protection Officer for all Local Authorities, there was still no further information from DCLG, NLAC or ALCA on whether sharing would be possible. The Clerk had

a)  Approached Ellis Whittam in respect of whether they would be providing a service.

b)  asked for GDPR to be put on the Agenda for the next B&NES Parish Liaison meeting in February as it had not been discussed at the meeting the previous week.

c)  identified a 3 day training course advertised that the Clerk could undertake to become a qualified DPO but these were very booked up and the earliest course the Clerk could book was February.

The impacts noted to date were as follows (which would need to be budgeted for in 2018/2019)

email addresses for all Councillors/staff £11 per month per person
New secure data sharing areas on server/cloud TBC
Blind copy distribution should be mandatory
Data Protection Officer qualification/training for Town Clerk £2500
All staff need Data protection training
Opt in and privacy notices to all staff, Councillors and members of the public
Unsubscribe button as part of email signature for all staff?

The Committee discussed the implications of sharing a DPO with B&NES or having a DPO in house i.e. The Clerk (with the possibility of sharing with other Parish Councils) and the timescales involved. It was suggested that the Council wait until B&ES had a DPO-sharing system in place. The Clerk drew attention to the fact that the Town Council data still had to be audited before then and any issues discovered would have to be expedited by the Town Clerk. Furthermore, if provision for sharing a DPO had not been agreed before May 2018 with B&NES, and the Clerk had not been trained, then Town Council would not be compliant and subject to a fine.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

(i)  Councillor O’Brien to write to Maria Lucas/Ashley Ayre in respect of B&NES provision of a Data Protection Officer for both B&NES and potentially Parish & Town Councils.

(ii)  Clerk will provisionally book on a DPO course.

33. DATE OF NEXT MEETING

To note the date of the next meeting is Tuesday 30th January at 7.00pm in the Town Council Offices.

The meeting finished at 20.46

SIGNED:………………………. ….. DATED: …………………………..

(Chairman)