Agenda item

For the year 2022/23, the Council through its Annual Governance Statement, conducted a review of the effectiveness of its systems of internal control and developed an Action Plan to address the improvements required. This report provides an update on the progress with the Action Plan with a particular focus on financial management, information management, procurement and contract management and the recommendations in the Report in the Public Interest on the refurbishment of Fairfield Hall.  

The Committee is asked to consider and comment on the Annual Government Statement (AGS) 2022/23 Action Plan Update which is attached as Appendix 1.

Stephen Lawrence-Orumwense, Monitoring Officer introduced the report and Annual Governance Statement (AGS) action plan updates to the committee. Huw Rhys-Lewis, Interim Director of Commercial Investment & Capital, Paul Golland, Interim Chief Digital Officer & Director of Resident Access and Chris Dyson, Data Protection Manager were present to provide detailed updates and to answer the Committee’s questions in relation to the Procurement and Contract Management and Information Management and actions.

There had been significant progress in completing the RIPI 2 recommendations and work was underway to ensure these actions were embedded in the council’s practices. A session had taken place with stakeholder officers and presentations on the lessons learned and changes in practice would be shared across internal boards/forums to ensure continued discussion and awareness by responsible officers. The thematic overlaps between the RIPI2 actions and the Improvement Panel Exit Strategy recommendations were noted. An Exit Strategy Action Plan Tracker had been developed and the committee would receive reporting on the recommendations when targets were set.

Some actions included in the reports were ongoing and the committee asked how completed actions would be reviewed to ensure they were embedded and issues did not reoccur. It was advised that the council’s internal audit function would be testing completed actions and part of this was to ascertain their implementation within business-as-usual practices. The audit plan would cover the issues flagged by RIPI 2 and provide the continuous assurance. The Committee requested the future internal audit test date to be included in the tracker for those actions marked complete.

Councillor Cummings commented that the scale of recommendations and actions included within the AGS were far larger than a council in normal position and there was work to be done to return to an acceptable level of monitoring and to ensure the council was not too backward looking.

Huw Rhys-Lewis, Interim Director of Commercial Investment & Capital advised the improvement work already undertaken had met the requirements of the RIPI 2 recommendations and the service was now focussed on the development of improvement plans for Procurement and Contract Management to satisfy the Improvement Panel Exit Strategy. The team had undertaken benchmarking with other local authorities and incorporated the government best practice guidance. The improvement plans were expected to be finalised by March 2024 and would be recommended to Council for approval. The plans incorporated and provided flexibility for the requirements anticipated under the new procurement act. Contract management improvements prioritised key contracts and commercial reviews had been implemented to measure the performance and identify any issues or changes required.

The committee asked what percentage of contracts were now procured through the improved process. 460 contracts had been identified by the deep dive undertaken in July 2023 and around 50% of these were deemed compliant. Since then, improvements were ongoing to improve compliance and had included the allocation of a dedicated procurement manager for each team. Non-compliant contracts were typically below £180,000 in value with an approximate total value of between £30 million and £40 million.

The committee queried the approach taken when the resolution of a non-compliant contract would cause significant disruption to the council and/or residents. Officers advised a pragmatic approach was taken, with the complexity and impact of each contract considered. In some cases, if this would affect the council’s statutory responsibilities, this was registered until the contract was due for renewal (typically within 3-5 years) and it could be reprocured compliantly.

Cllr Cummings advised the committee of the quarterly procurement plan update and annual procurement plan which were reported via cabinet, were available online and could be distributed to committee rather than duplicating a process.

Officers agreed to summarise the output of the deep dive which had informed the improvement plans including the benchmarking data, with the committee. The improvement plan would also be shared once finalised.

Paul Golland, Interim Chief Digital Officer & Director of Resident Access presented an update on the Information Management action progress. Following intervention by the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) improvement plans had been developed and shared with the ICO and resourcing had been allocated to clear the backlog of Freedom of Information (FOI) and Subject Access requests (SAR). The council was now achieving its target of 90% of requests serviced within the timescales. The ICO had provided positive feedback on the council’s progress and it was expected the ICO’s oversight of Croydon would end soon. The complexity and importance of rectifying the information management issues to ensure the council was meeting its legal obligations and offering transparent access to public information was noted.

Chris Dyson, Data Protection Manager advised the committee there was currently one outstanding FOI from the backlog, this was expected to be closed in the following week and should end the ICO’s enforcement. The current caseload was 47 FOIs and 40 SARs, and both were reducing. Training courses were provided for staff each month and there had been good uptake of the mandatory online training for all new starters. 

In response to questions officers advised reaching compliance had been the focus of Information Management resourcing. An Information Management strategy review was in development and an Internal Information Control Board had launched to proactively monitor and respond to breaches. The council was intending to move towards being a more paperless organisation and adopting new technologies to index and find information. The Information Management strategy recommendations would be included within the broader transformation programme.  

The committee raised concerns about the recurrent Information Management performance issues, noting the performance data on the council’s website was dated March 2023. The committee noted issues of appropriate resourcing, ineffective software and highlighted the importance of staff culture in providing timely responses to information requests. The committee asked whether Croydon was close to a position of best practice in this area. Officers advised there remained work to be done and the next phase of strategic review was in development. Over the last 18 months the focus of resources had been placed on achieving improvements to data transparency which had been to the detriment of other areas. Approval of the Information Management strategy in the coming months would enable improvement work to move on to other areas. The improvement in this area was positive with increased awareness across the council of the requirements to respond to FOI and SAR requests and the council’s website should reflect this.

The committee queried if proactive actions could be taken to minimise the number of FOI/SAR requests received. It was advised part of the improvement plan work included the adoption of software which made previous requests publicly available to avoid work on duplicate requests. A rationalisation of the systems previously used had been completed and there was now one platform used to manage requests. Information requested was usually council information held by services and if not personal or exempt, was technically public information however local authorities did not make all this available online.

Accessibility would be a key area for improvement. Cllr Cummings noted the issue of searches on the website not returning the most up to date information and advised updated FOI performance data was available online via the Mayor’s Performance Report. There had been a change culturally regarding treatment of information, for example FOI requests had prompted the publication of information on the council’s website rather than only responding to the request. The timeliness of information publication had improved, for example the Financial Period Monitoring Reports were published immediately following sign off ahead of Cabinet.

The committee queried whether new targets were set for areas where current actions were now completed. It was advised if the committee was satisfied that the action required had been taken it would no longer need to be identified as a governance issue or included on future AGS action trackers. The 2023/24 Annual Governance Statement would include a review of completed actions. The Exit Strategy Action Plan tracker included 177 actions and this would be a key area of focus for the committee going forward.

The committee RESOLVED, to; consider and comment on the Annual Government Statement (AGS) 2022/23 Action Plan Update which was attached as Appendix 1.