Issue - meetings

To consider the external auditor’s report (stapled separately). 

The committee considered the annual certification report 2011/12 from the council’s external auditor, Ernst & Young.  This looked at the sums the council claimed from the government in grants and subsidies and checked whether the council had correctly accounted for these in its returns to government. 

The committee noted that the council’s housing benefit subsidy claim was subject to both amendment and qualification.  The amendment affected the grant due to the council, increasing it by £6,963.  The auditor drew the committee’s attention to the non-housing revenue account rent rebates section of the housing benefit claim.  There were a number of errors disproportionate to the number and value of claims.  The auditor believed effective data cleansing of non-housing revenue account cases would significantly reduce these errors, reduce audit time, and reduce the impact on benefit staff in resolving queries.  If the auditor had not discovered the errors, this would have resulted in lost subsidy to the council. 

RESOLVED: To note the report.