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

The request was partially successful.

Dear Havant Borough 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

Customer Service Centre, Havant Borough Council

Dear Ms Waugh

Thank you for your e-mail submitting an FOI request. This has been forwarded to our Information Governance Officer for them to investigate and respond directly to you.

If you have any further enquiries regarding this FOI or any further FOI’s please can you e-mail [email address].

Yours sincerely

Kim Vassallo

Customer Service Officer
Havant Borough Council
Public Service Plaza
Civic Centre Road
Havant
PO9 2AX

Tel 02392446019

e-mail [email address]

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HBC Info Requests, Havant Borough Council

Dear Megan,

Thank you for your request for information which has been received by
Havant Borough Council.

Your request for information will be dealt with under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 or Environmental Information Regulations 2004. We
will determine whether we hold the information you have requested and
provide you with our response within 20 working days.

For more information on our approach to information requests and to view
our Publication Scheme, please use the following
link: [1]http://www.havant.gov.uk/freedom-of-info... contact us
on: [email address

Kind regards,

Information Governance

Havant Borough Council 

Public Service
Plaza                                                           

Civic Centre Road 

Havant PO9 2AX

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HBC Info Requests, Havant Borough Council

Dear Ms Waugh,

           

Freedom of Information request

 

Thank you for your request for information under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000, which has been received by Havant Borough Council.
You have requested the following:

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

* Havant Borough Councill can confirm that there were no objections in
respect of the quality of the local Authority Audits and no objections
from local residents have held to Account the council in any of the
financial years 2009 to 2019.

* We do not have a record of inspections nor have we received any FOI's
related to the above information, therefore, we do not hold this
information.

 

Please accept this email as completion of your request. 

The information contained in this response is released under an Open
Government Licence, for more information please visit the Councils
website; [1]http://www.havant.gov.uk/re-use-public-s...

 

If you are dissatisfied with the outcome of your request, please contact
our Information Governance Department on [2][email address] and
we will conduct an internal review. Upon review, If you are still
dissatisfied, you may appeal our decision by contacting the Information
Commissioner’s Office; for more information please visit the [3]ICO’s
website.

 

Please be aware, if we do not receive an appeal within 40 days of you
receiving this letter we will assume that you are satisfied with our
response. If you wish to make any further requests for information
please do not hesitate to contact us on [4][email address].

Kind regards
Joe Garvin
Information Governance Officer
Havant Borough Council and East Hampshire District Council
Direct Dial: 02392 446431
Havant Borough Council 
Public Service
Plaza                                                           
Civic Centre Road Havant PO9 2AX                              
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and 
East Hampshire District Council
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