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

The request was partially successful.

Dear Cambridgeshire County 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, Cambridgeshire County Council

Dear Megan Waugh,

Re: Freedom of Information Request ref 1191425

Thank you for your email. Your request will be dealt with in line with the Freedom of Information Act and its regulations. In accordance with the Act, the Council aims to respond to all requests within 20 working days, in this instance by 23/10/2019.

If we require further information, clarification or a fee in order to fulfil your request we will contact you again. Please quote the reference number above in all future correspondence concerning this request.

Yours sincerely,

Donna

Donna Hudson
Information Management Analyst
Information Governance Team
Data Protection
Cambridgeshire County Council
Team Tel: 01223 699137

show quoted sections

FOI, Cambridgeshire County Council

Dear Megan

 

Re: Freedom of Information Request ref: FOI_1191425

 

We have considered your request under the terms of the Freedom of
Information Act. Please find our response below.

 

 

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?

 

In each of the years 2016/7, 2017/18 and 2018/19, objections to the
accounts of Cambridgeshire County Council were received by the external
auditor from a local elector in accordance with the Local Audit and
Accountability Act 2014. These were received on 10^th August 2017, 11^th
July 2018 and 22^nd July 2019 respectively.

 

Each objection referred to a variety of concerns across multiple areas
including the Council’s decision making, handling of major projects and
procurement.

 

All of these objections currently remain under consideration by the
external auditors, and none has been concluded so far as a consideration
of referral to the High Court, or Public Interest Reports.  No
recommendations or final decision notices have yet been received.  To
date, the County Council has not been charged additional sums to carry out
work in relation to the objection.  Given these are ongoing objections the
Council this limits the Council’s ability to comment further on the
questions raised.

 

During 2019, two further objections were received by the external auditor,
however these were rejected as being received outside of the published
period for objections.

 

 

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

 

The Council has records of two inspection requests during this period. 
These were handled by the finance directorate.

                

An inspection requested was received on 2^nd August 2017, relating to
transactions with named suppliers, the contracts register and the asset
register. The requestor received information to inspect by 15^th August
2017.

 

An inspection request was received on 4^th June 2019, relating to
transactions with named suppliers. The requestor received information to
inspect by 11^th June 2019.

 

Neither request was dealt with under FOI.

 

 

I hope this information is helpful but if you are unhappy with the service
you have received in relation to your request and wish to make a complaint
or request a review, you should write to Information Management, at either
[1][Cambridgeshire County Council request email] or by post at Box No. OCT1224, Shire Hall,
Cambridge CB3 0AP within 40 days of the date of this e-mail.

 

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have
the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a
decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information
Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9
5AF, or via their website: [2]https://ico.org.uk/.

 

Generally, the ICO will not undertake a review or make a decision on a
request until the internal review process has been completed.

 

Kind Regards,

 

 

Information Management Team

Tel: 01223 699137

Box No. OCT1224, Cambridgeshire County Council, Shire Hall, Cambridge, CB3
0AP

 

 

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