capacity as auditors

The request was partially successful.

Dear Sir or Madam,

Looking for the professional capacity of the District auditors as a body in relation to investigating councils. ( north east Lincolnshire since 2000 )

Can I have the answers to these questions for as long back as you hold the data

What is the professional capacity of the district office in relation to investigating;

1.Legal qualifications 2.Accountancy qualifications 3.Other suitable Professional experience. 4. investigative experience

As a pet project I also ask government departments the following

1.Use of solace ( society of local chief executives ), does your organisation deal with these, if so, for what capacity and when. If you have used solace for wage / position changes, please can you provide me the details of who, when, and what was the wages before hand.

2.As an estimate percentage. How many employees of your office did not previously hold government or council positions. ( how many of you have experience in the private sector )

Can you give me an example of the three highest wages in your office and tell me what them jobs are.

Yours faithfully,

George Cant

Freedom of Information,

Dear Mr Cant

Following our phone conversation today I am writing to acknowledge receipt
of your request for information.
Your request has been assigned and referenced RFI 1167 , for efficiency
please note this reference number on all correspondence.

The Audit Commission is committed to the principles of the Freedom of
Information Act (FoIA) and will wherever possible provide all the
information requested unless constrained by another statute or by an
exemption within the FoIA. Please note that some information you have
requested may not be provided to you; this will only be information that
can be withheld by law. In which case the reasons will be explained to you
along with your copy of any information that can be released to you.

Your request was received by the Audit Commission on 28 September 2009, it
is being considered and you will receive a response within the statutory
timescale of 20 working days from receipt of the request, as defined by
the FoIA. That date is 26 October 2009.

The Audit Commission may need to contact you if the request needs to be
clarified; this is to ensure that we provide you with the information you
require

In some circumstances a fee may be payable and if that is the case, we
will let you know. A fees notice will be issued to you, and you will be
required to pay before we will proceed to deal with your request.

I again apologise for the delay in this acknowledgement.

Yours sincerely

Shaun Kavanagh
Public Enquiries Officer
part of the Chief Executive's Office

? Audit Commission
Westward House
Lime Kiln Close
Stoke Gifford
Bristol
BS34 8SR

( 0844 798 7961
E 07967 565735
? [1][email address]

i For Freedom of Information (FOI) requests please email
[2][Audit Commission request email]

show quoted sections

K Hodgkinson left an annotation ()

It would help if these people understood Council Tax law. It would appear that few of them do.

And the Audit Commission appears not to either!

It appears to be believed by large numbers of internal and external auditors that if more than one person is on the electoral register for an address, there is no entitlement to a 25% discount! I know this is unbelievable, but since they even told Parliament this it is crystal clear they have been making this mistake (unless they set out deliberately to misinform Parliament)

Worse, even auditors refuse to accept that this is a false belief even when you quote Audit Commission admissions that it is false to them! They have been told the opposite for so long via circulars and data matching output that the false belief is difficult to shift.

So membership of the IRRV would appear to be a useful qualification and one that should be on your list.

Freedom of Information,

1 Attachment

<<20091026 1440 resonse RFI 1167.pdf>>
Dear Mr Cant

Please see attached the Audit Commission response to your request for
information RFI 1167.

Yours sincerely

Shaun Kavanagh
Public Enquiries Officer
part of the Chief Executive's Office

? Audit Commission
Westward House
Lime Kiln Close
Stoke Gifford
Bristol
BS34 8SR

( 0844 798 7961
E 07967 565735
? [1][email address]

i For Freedom of Information (FOI) requests please email
[2][Audit Commission request email]

show quoted sections

Dear Freedom of Information,

Hi could you explain this a bit more clear.

2. In what capacity has the Audit Commission dealt with the Society of Local Chief Executives
(SOLACE)

You state --------

Solace is a membership body that we have some dealings with. Some staff maybe members,
but we don't use them for any form of consultancy or advisory services.

--------
My question is what dealings do you have with them.

Yours sincerely,

George Cant

Ray left an annotation ()

They didn't want to answer this I guess.

Neither did they want divulge who commanded the three highest wages within the Audit Commission as is indicated by the broken link to the supposedly reasonably accessible information on page 50 and 51 of the Audit Commission’s annual report and accounts 2008/2009.

K Hodgkinson left an annotation ()

The Audit Commission has held meetings with SOLACE. For example it held meetings with them over its data matching in respect of so called single person discounts. In fact, it was in documents referring to this meeting that I first heard of SOLACE. The Commission met with them to advance its compaign to get hold of the full electoral register, which many councils had refused to supply on the grounds that doing this would be unlawful. On the latter question, the Commission says it is still legally live, so why it had the cheek to try to convince SOLACE one way or the other I do not know.