Friday 23 June 2017

Public audit time


Its that time of year again when the public are allowed to enter County Hall and inspect the council's accounts, and should you unearth evidence of creative accounting and/or slush funds, or an abnormally large consignment of brown envelopes, you can report your findings to the Wales Audit Office.



The public inspection period, by appointment only, lasts from 5th July until the 1st August and includes all books, receipts, invoices, contracts etc, well, not quite all but better than nothing. The contact details can be found on the council website here. In all seriousness, this public audit exercise is an important right and especially so when the council refuses to routinely publish its spending details, a legal requirement in England.

A few years back a small group of us decided to take the plunge and pop along to have a browse over several areas of interest. The council were far more concerned about who was coming, demanding NAMES in advance, rather than assisting us with our enquiries. We got the feeling that this was a very rare occurrence and no one else had had the cheek to be so intrusive in living memory. It was all a bit of a muddle but at least we had an experienced accountant in our group to help us wade through some of the mire. In fact, unless the process has become a bit more user friendly, taking your own accountant might be advisable...

One area of spending which was of interest at the time was the council's well resourced, and notorious press office and in particular it's very own recently established commercial PR company, SirGar PR and it's 'team of twenty'. Despite the finance department being a matter of yards from the press office, the bean counters had never even heard of SirGar PR, never mind how much it was costing. Eventually we gave up with it all, went home, and submitted various freedom of information requests instead. No idea what happened to SirGar PR.

Mind you, that was a breeze compared with the horrors of viewing the Register of Councillors' Gifts and Interests. Back in 2011 fellow blogger Cneifiwr and I were escorted to what appeared to be a broom cupboard in the depths of County Hall where the now retired head of democratic services passed us the dusty files, one at a time, returning each to its sacred position on the shelf before presenting the next, whilst pretending to write notes a matter of inches away from the uncomfortable bloggers. A second council officer also remained confined to the room, perhaps as a witness, just in case we told the Russians about Pam Palmer's silk scarf and box of tea...




Eventually the council were kicked into action and the Register is now online. The Register of Senior Officers' Interests, Expenses etc can still only be obtained via tortuous freedom of information requests, a quest I've embarked on once or twice. And as I said, spending details are not routinely published, and some spending will never be found; either deemed too 'sensitive' or lurking under the corporate mattress....

So if you have an interest, and know roughly what you're looking for, it is worth dropping by. If you do, please let me know how you get on...

* * *

Before I go, the Executive Board kicks off its business next Monday and one item on the agenda is an update on the Community Asset Transfers. This was a lengthy list of council owned parks, playgrounds and Recs which have been transferred to local Town and Community Councils to fund and run. 

Most transfers have been completed but its last chance saloon for twenty-one of them, covered by eleven Town and Community Councils (see here page 4, group D). A 'consultation' will now be held with 'various stakeholders' on the final fate of these playgrounds, but what will be uppermost in the council's mind is the valuable development land they sit on... 

12 comments:

Elderly Neil. said...

Very informative Jacqui. I imagine you will take the opportunity to peruse the latest selection or shall I say hope to. Taking into account previous actions perpetrated by the CEO HOPE may well be the operative word.
Particularly interesting would be; if it has not been SLUSHED entries regarding the entire legal costs of the case which appears still to be ongoing are in evidence.

Tessa said...

I was the experienced accountant - and former audit commission employee - referred to above. In a professional capacity, I used to be able to make requests for specific information - and this would be (albeit grudgingly) provided to enable me to form a judgement - on whatever (even if something along the lines of, when auditing a grant once, I had to say "I can't accept this! Where's the evidence and explanations regarding the spend of this money?!". However in a lay person's capacity, requesting information in a format other than the massive reams of computer printout that were dropped (smugly) in front of us - was met with a flat refusal.

Peter mash Morgan said...

Reddit link https://www.reddit.com/r/Wales/comments/6j14qd/ccc_public_audit_time_till_1st_august_jacqui_blog/

Peter mash Morgan said...

- is there a "TODO list" of stuff to look for ?
- can we take "pictures" of the stuff ?

caebrwyn said...

@Peter mash Morgan

- No...it's best to stick to an area of spending, or an issue, that you are interested in

- I'm not sure. I don't see why photos can't be taken, it's cheaper and easier than photocopying.

Peter mash Morgan said...

@caebrwyn so stick to what..

- area of spending where..
- and what issues.. jq

Re photos its taking a mobile "snapshot" right ?

caebrwyn said...

@Peter mash Morgan
This post is just to remind residents that they can go an inspect the council's accounts in the given time period - it's not suggesting areas of interest - that's up to the individual and whatever area of spend etc they wish to look at.

Anonymous said...

Oh how much fun if 50+ residents descended on the council demanding access to different areas of the accounts and then proceeded to document them all via photograph for later inspection and analysis online.

Can you imagine the councils reaction???

Peter mash Morgan said...

50+++, lets get anyone who's bored.. and want's a day out to Carmarthen..

Lets commision a bus, the audit bus, from ammanford, llandeilo, llndovery, pendine.. and a day trip to see how "stuff works".. ROFL ;-))

Lesley said...

I remember that frustrating and fruitless experience too - and it's no wonder that we've never bothered to try doing it again! As for making photocopies, even if it had been allowed (and if I recall correctly) we would have had to pay some extortionate price for each one and I doubt whether the gauleiter who was present would have allowed us to take photographs on phones for free.

Anonymous said...

There is a free app called 'scannable' for use on mobile and tablet devices which produces pdf documents via use of the suit-in camera. As the camera in these devices is quite often superior to that of standard photocopiers it is actually a better way to reproduce these documents, with the added bonus that no paper is utilised and the documents can be shared with multiple recipients.

There is no legal reason for the council to require a photocopier to be used to reproduce the documents as mobile/tablet devices are performing an identical function.

Should 50+ people attend en-masse I imagine it would be impossible for the council to police anyone taking photos or how the documents are recorded, but the fact they are supposedly reproduced on a website supports the notion that photocopiers are not a sole requirement for reproduction.

It all depends how determined you are to lift the stones in search of your truth.

John Brace said...

The interesting thing is that this year, the "interested person" definition has been changed from just local government electors in that council's area and business rate payers in that area to those two categories plus journalists too (in its broadest sense including bloggers and citizen journalists).

As to the point about taking copies of documents on a camera. The legislation specifically allows the interested person to copy the documents.

Personally I don't trust the public body to do it as:

a) they charge and
b) they often do it incompetently.

There are ways the public body tries to thwart an inspection though, such as having the inspection in an internal room with no natural lighting (if they know you will bring a camera), and/or with documents at such a poor resolution that the writing (or text) can't be deciphered anyway as it's all just a blur!

Common tricks involve copying colour documents in black and white, accidentally chopping off part of the page as it is inserted into the photocopier incorrectly or shrinking down the information to pages so small you need a microscope to read them!!!