Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Bell and Councillor Sharpe, Portfolio Holder for Finance.

There were no disclosures of interest.

The minutes of the meeting held on 26th September 2007 were submitted and signed

The Committee considered the quarterly report of requests made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

From 1st April to 30th June 2007 the Council had received 18 requests, all but one of which were replied to in the required time. From 1st July to 30th September 2007 the Council received 19 requests of which 4 were not replied to in the required time.

Lists of the requests were attached as appendices to the report.

A Member asked why it had not been possible to supply an answer to the request for parking statistics (references 1069172 and1072762).

The Audit Manager responded on behalf of the Head of Legal & Democratic Services that the information had not been provided as it had been the view of the Parking Manager that the information would not be easy to compile and locate and that it was likely to exceed the statutory maximum in cost to provide the information. Therefore, under s12 of the Act there had been no obligation to provide it.

The statutory maximum was £450 based on the assumption that the person locating, retrieving and extracting the information was charged at £25 per hour, thus equating to 18 hours of time.

One case was a request for all tickets issued on a stretch of Cassiobury Park Avenue in the previous 12 months. As the information readily available on the parking shop's computer only had whole streets, it would have meant looking in every attendants' pocket book and extracting the information on the stretch in question, which would have clearly taken more than 18 hours to compile.

The second request was from the Watford Observer wanting details of every fixed penalty notice issued in Watford in the previous 12 months, including those issued in car parks. Again, this was felt to involve too much time to compile. However the Observer had been sent statistics of the number of tickets issued for every street in Watford but as this was not what they had requested in their FOI request it was classified as refused.

The Member said that, whist he could appreciate the reason given in respect of the first case, he could not understand why the total figure, as requested by the Watford Observer, could not be provided. The Director of Finance said that it was possible that the Watford Observer had required more information than could be provided or that it was a replicate of the very detailed information which had already been provided to the Watford Observer the previous year.

The Committee received a report giving an up-date on the work of the Fraud Investigation Team and outlining the results of work undertaken to date as a result of the National Fraud Initiative 2006.

The Audit Manager introduced the report. He drew the committee's attention specifically to the number of sanctions applied, which was one of the measures of the team's performance, and the National Fraud Initiative which had identified 860 potentially fraudulent claims for benefit which, following review, had been reduced to 9. Seven were still under investigation.

In response to a question from a Member, the Audit Manager confirmed that all 860 cases related to Watford. He added that having an experienced manager in place had helped to narrow down the cases requiring detailed investigation but the work was very time consuming.

The Director of Finance explained that, whilst there were new sophisticated systems for carrying out data matching, they still had limitations and there were false matches which the system did not necessarily pick up.

The Chair referred to the Benefit Fraud Inspection Report in 2006 and asked how often these took place. The Audit Manager responded that this was the only occasion they had visited Watford and the Inspectorate had now ceased to exist. The Director of Finance added that there may be an Audit Commission Inspection but it was not clear at this stage how the inspection programme would work.

A Member asked whether the hotline was working. The Audit Manager said that its use was reviewed around three months ago and whilst the use was not particularly high, it was considered worth keeping. The Hotline had recently been given some publicity through Wats Up.

The Chair commented on the amount of work done by the team with a lot of claims being handled but with very few problems.

The Committee received a report setting out progress in implementing risk management arrangements, including the updated position on the Zurich Municipal Report Action Plan.

The Director of Finance introduced the report. She said that, whilst progress was still slower than desired, a meeting of the Risk Management Group had taken place that afternoon where the need to ensure that risk management was embedded in a realistic way had been discussed. It was important that departments could demonstrate what they were doing and provide evidence. It was not just a box ticking exercise and was crucial to ensure that the Council was not exposed to unnecessary risks.

A Member referred to the reference in the Zurich Municipal Action Plan regarding the need for consistency. He asked whether this was a resource or education issue.

The Director of Finance responded that there was a need for consistency from all departments and some were more focussed than others. Risk registers were published on the Intranet but not all departments kept theirs updated. Attendance at all meetings of the Risk Management Group was important and where the nominated representative could not attend they should be sending a substitute.

A Member asked whether representatives on the Risk Management Group fed back to their departments. The Director of Finance said that representatives should be members of Departmental Management Teams and it was important for the officer to be at the right level to be able to contribute to meetings and feed back to their departments.

A Member asked about the reference in the report to the fact that outstanding recommendations relating to business continuity planning would not meet the set deadlines.

The Director of Finance explained that the Business Continuity Plan had been circulated some months ago for departments to complete. The Council shared an Emergency Planning Officer with Three Rivers DC who was assisting with continuity planning. The issue had been discussed at the Risk Management meeting that afternoon and a sub group had also been established to look at carrying out testing, for example, by doing spot checks.

A Member commented that an Emergency Table Top Exercise would be useful.

The Committee received a report providing information on the work undertaken by Internal Audit for the period 1st September to 30th November 2007.

The Audit Manager introduced the report and updated members on a number of issues referred to in the report. With regard to Payment Card Standards, he informed Members that new software had been ordered along with other measures to improve security. The anticipated completion date was April 2008.

With regard to Payroll, he said that, whilst a meeting had not yet taken place, he had received confirmation from the consultant that the recommendations had been accepted and were being worked on.

Instructions on how to transmit sensitive information had been issued following the apparent loss of two discs by HMRC and the new Information Security Policy was close to completion.

Progress was also being made in addressing software licensing issues and the updating of the Asset Register was in hand. He had also spoken to the Head of Revenues & Benefits who was satisfied that the document imaging processing issues had been resolved and had signed the project off with the supplier.

The Chair commented that he had been approached by residents needing reassurance about the security of documents. He was pleased to see that action had been taken.

A Member referred to software licensing and commented on the significant fines which could be imposed for non compliance. He asked whether the issue was picked up through risk management.

The Director of Finance responded that there had been a process in place but it seemed to have slipped, probably due to changes in BIS staffing.

She also explained that Zurich had criticised the way risk registers were constructed - by starting with basic risks before any mitigation. However, she preferred this process which, she considered, encouraged people to think more about how risks could be mitigated. A Member agreed and added that if people could not understand the reasoning for procedures they would tend to cut corners.
The Audit Manager confirmed that he would be reporting back on Payroll by the end of the Financial Year.

The Annual Health & Safety Report 2006/07 was deferred from the last meeting

With the agreement of the Chair, the Quarterly Report for the second quarter - July-September - was circulated after agenda despatch due to information not being available in time.

The Health & Safety Officer introduced the reports and answered questions.

A Member asked what was considered to constitute physical and verbal abuse.

The Health & Safety Officer responded that these were very subjective issues and some people were better able to cope than others. Measures were in place to protect staff who came face to face with the public and they were encouraged to report any incidents where they considered they had been abused. Reporting helped to identify patterns and training could be offered to help people handle situations.

In response to a question from a Member, the Health & Safety Officer confirmed that abuse could sometimes lead to the member of staff being absent from work.

The Committee confirmed that they found the quarterly reports useful and that they enabled them to keep abreast of the latest situation. The Director of Finance commented that the quarterly reports were submitted to CMB and helped with identifying training needs as well as maintaining the profile of health & safety.

The Committee discussed the facility for staff using VDUs to have eye tests paid for by the Council which the Health & Safety Officer confirmed was usually part of the normal eye test. It was important to ensure that staff were aware of this facility.

A Member also stressed the importance of manual handling training for all staff. The Health & Safety Officer agreed but added that staff were required to take some responsibility and highlight any problems.

He concluded by explaining that he was looking at improving the format of the report and the way the information was presented.