Dear Requestor,
RE: - Request For Information

Thank you for your request for information held by Rochdale Council which
was received by us on 25/09/2019 regarding INT-429092-Q6S6Q7: Public
exercise of inspection and objection rights under Local Audit and
Accountability Act 2014  .

I write to advise you that your request has been allocated to the
department best able to deal with your queries, and will be considered
under the Freedom of Information Act.
Under the Act we are required to provide a response within 20 working days
however we do endeavor to provide a response at the earliest opportunity.

Should you have any queries, please contact us using the details below.

Yours sincerely,

Information Governance Unit
Customers & ICT
Floor 2, Number One Riverside
Smith Street, Rochdale, OL16 1XU
 
Email: [1][Rochdale Council request email]

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[4][IMG]

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References

Visible links
1. mailto:[Rochdale Council request email]
2. http://www.rochdaleliteraturefestival.co...
3. http://www.rochdale.gov.uk/awards
4. http://www.rochdale.gov.uk/awards

Dear Ms Waugh,

Please find attached a response to your FOI request below.

Yours sincerely

Rose Bennett

Rose Bennett P

Senior Accountant (Corporate)

Finance

[1]Phone [2]01706 925419

[3]Mail [4][email address]

Rochdale Borough Council

Floor 2, Number One Riverside

Smith Street, Rochdale, OL16 1XU

To access our services go to [5]www.rochdale.gov.uk

For news and social media updates go to [6]www.rochdale.gov.uk/news

Please consider the environment before printing this email.

From: Megan I Waugh [7][FOI #607367 email]
Sent: 25 September 2019 20:23
To: FOI
Subject: Freedom of Information request - Public exercise of inspection
and objection rights under Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014

Dear Rochdale Metropolitan 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

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