Public exercise of inspection and objection rights under Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014

The request was successful.

Dear Fenland District Council,

The Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 provides members of the public with rights to inspect, within an annual inspection window, the council’s accounts and related documents. It also provides local electors with the right to object to an item of the accounts. Prior to the 2014 Act these same rights were enshrined in the Audit Commission Act 1998.

As a regular user of these rights, in my capacity as a local journalist, local elector, member of accountability campaigns and academic researcher I am interested in understanding the frequency and the way in which these rights are being used across the country.

The MHCLG have recently launched an independent inquiry into the quality of local authority audit (the Redmond Review). One of the questions in the recent call for views asks whether the “the inspection and objection regime allow local residents to hold their council to account in an effective manner?” whilst also acknowledging that data is not currently gathered at a national level on the citizen uses of these rights. I feel there is therefore a strong public interest in the timely disclosure of the information in this request.

Please provide the following information:

A. For all the objections you received between 2009 and 2019 (i.e. relating to financial years 2008/9 to 2018/19 inclusive) please provide the following information in an excel spreadsheet. Please use the list below as column headers and compile the data for each objection in a separate row.

1. Objection reference no.
2. Financial year the objection relates to
3. Subject/summary of the objection
4. Date objection was received
5. Did objector ask the auditor make a referral to the High Court?
6. Did objector ask the auditor to issue a Public Interest Report?
7. Was the objection accepted as valid?
8. If not, why?
9. Was a public interest report issued?
10. Was a referral made to the High Court?
11. If so, what was the High Court’s decision?
12. Were any other recommendations made or actions taken by the auditor under the powers set out in Section 24 of the Local Audit and Accountability Act?
13. Date objector was sent a final decision notice
14. How much was the council charged by the auditor to carry out work in relation to the objection?

B. For all the inspection requests you received between 2009 and 2019 (i.e. relating to financial years from 2008/9 to 2018/19 inclusive), please provide the following information in an excel spreadsheet. Please use the list below as column headers and compile the data for each inspection request in a separate row.

1. Inspection reference number
2. Financial year inspection request refers to
3. Date request for information received
4. Was the request accepted as valid?
5. If not, why?
6. Was request transferred to FOI?
7. If transferred to FOI, what was the justification for doing so?
8. Subject/summary of request as recorded
9. Which department(s) dealt with the information request?
10. Date the response and documents requested were sent to requester

Yours faithfully,

Megan I Waugh

foi, Fenland District Council

1 Attachment

I acknowledge your request for information received, which is being
investigated.

 

The Act allows the Council 20 working days to comply with your request. 
During this time, the Council will assess the information to establish if
any exemptions apply.  If it is felt that any information may be exempt
from disclosure, this will be given careful consideration and the Public
Interest Test will be applied if appropriate.  If it is determined that
any material is exempt, you will be notified of which information is not
going to be released and the reasons why.

 

If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact the Freedom of
Information Officer at Fenland District Council, or email
[1][Fenland District Council request email].  It would help us to help you if you could quote
the Information Request No, quoted above, on any correspondence.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Freedom of Information Officer

01354 654321

[2]www.fenland.gov.uk

 

[3]Medium logo 2008 cmyk

 

How did we do? Visit our website to [4]have your say

 

Fenland District Council Legal Disclaimer

 

E-mails and any attachments from Fenland District Council (the Council) are confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by replying to the e-mail, and then delete it without making copies or using it in any other way or placing any reliance on it.

It is not intended that this e-mail shall constitute either an offer or acceptance nor is it intended to form a contract between the Council and the addressee or any third party.

Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the sender and do not necessarily represent those of the Council unless otherwise specifically stated.

Although any attachments to the message will have been checked for viruses before transmission, you are urged to carry out your own virus check before opening attachments, since the Council accepts no responsibility for loss or damage caused by software viruses.

Senders and recipients of e-mail should be aware that, under the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016, the Freedom of Information Act 2000, the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 and other related legislation, the contents of e-mails may have to be disclosed in response to a request.

To provide you with our services we will need to record personal information, such as your e-mail address. This information will be kept securely and only accessed by approved staff. We will not share your information with anyone else without first telling you. If you would like more details about how we protect personal information then please contact our Data Protection Officer.

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[Fenland District Council request email]
2. http://www.fenland.gov.uk/
4. http://www.fenland.gov.uk/threecs

foi, Fenland District Council

1 Attachment

Dear Megan

 

Thank you for your request for information received on 25/09/2019. Please
accept my apologies for the delay in getting this information to you.
Please see our response below;

 

Fenland District Council has not received any objections under the
relevant audit regulations in the period 2009 to 2019 and there have also
been no formal inspection requests in this period.

 

If you require any further information regarding your request or are
unhappy with the response, you should contact the Member Services Officers
at Fenland District Council or e-mail [1][Fenland District Council request email] in the first
instance. 

 

If after this, you are still dissatisfied with this decision, you may
request the Information Commissioner to investigate.  The contact details
are:

 

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

WILMSLOW

Cheshire SK9 5AF

Tel: 01625 545700

[2]www.ico.org.uk

 

Yours sincerely

 

Freedom of Information Officer

01354 654321

[3]www.fenland.gov.uk

 

[4]Medium logo 2008 cmyk

 

How did we do? Visit our website to [5]have your say

 

Fenland District Council Legal Disclaimer

 

E-mails and any attachments from Fenland District Council (the Council) are confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by replying to the e-mail, and then delete it without making copies or using it in any other way or placing any reliance on it.

It is not intended that this e-mail shall constitute either an offer or acceptance nor is it intended to form a contract between the Council and the addressee or any third party.

Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the sender and do not necessarily represent those of the Council unless otherwise specifically stated.

Although any attachments to the message will have been checked for viruses before transmission, you are urged to carry out your own virus check before opening attachments, since the Council accepts no responsibility for loss or damage caused by software viruses.

Senders and recipients of e-mail should be aware that, under the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016, the Freedom of Information Act 2000, the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 and other related legislation, the contents of e-mails may have to be disclosed in response to a request.

To provide you with our services we will need to record personal information, such as your e-mail address. This information will be kept securely and only accessed by approved staff. We will not share your information with anyone else without first telling you. If you would like more details about how we protect personal information then please contact our Data Protection Officer.

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[Fenland District Council request email]
2. http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk/
3. http://www.fenland.gov.uk/
5. http://www.fenland.gov.uk/threecs