Agenda item

Joint Report of the Head of Internal Audit and Director of Adult Social Care (DASS) on the 2023/24 Fundamental Financial Systems Audit Outcomes and Action Plan in respect of Direct Payments and Community Home Care.

The Assistant Director of Adult Social Care presented on the Joint Report of the Head of Internal Audit and Director of Adult Social Care (DASS) on the 2023/24 Fundamental Financial Systems Audit Outcomes and Action Plan in respect of Direct Payments and Community Home Care.

The Direct Payments and Community Home Care audit received an audit opinion of ‘Inadequate’ in each of the eight years from 2014/15 to 2021/22. In light of this the overall opinion for 2022/23 was subsequently downgraded to Weak. The audit report for the subsequent year noted some progress in addressing the recommendations made during 2022/23, and the audit opinion for the latest year, 2023/24, was upgraded from Weak to Inadequate. At the Audit Committee meeting of 27 June 2024. Members requested a further update report at the November meeting of the Committee.

Significant work has been undertaken by Adult Social Care to respond to the historic system challenges since the audit. There has been joint working between Adult Social Care & Audit to offer support and constructive guidance. The programme of work is undertaken programmed to run continuously throughout the year, to highlight challenges in the system and a system response to remedy this. To fully address the auditing recommendations, in October 2022 the service undertook an exercise to restructure and repurpose its portfolios. The restructure of the service aligned the brokerage service within the commissioning portfolio, re-aligned the Client Finance Service and created a portfolio of Reform and Improvement. Since July 2022, the service has devised a complete system transformation and improvement plan, aligned to Adult Social Care improvement which is expected to support the service to become more efficient and effective in managing demand and meeting the needs of vulnerable residents, who have been assessed as having care and support needs, in accordance with statutory responsibilities. In addition, the service has devised a new target operating model.

Member queries whether the causes of the consistently ‘inadequate’ and ‘weak’ gradings have had a direct impact on the overspending in Adult Social Care. The Officer explained that some areas of weakness identified in the service such as staff turnover and system issues would not necessarily impact the budget. However, there are some areas which may have impacted the spending in Adult Social Care. For instance, more regular reviews of those receiving care could have identified where reduced care packages could have been offered and therefore savings could be made.

Members queried whether there is adequate accountability for Officers as 7 years of an inadequate rating would suggest there is not. The Assistant Director of Adult Social Care confirmed that they as challenged and held to account by Audit.

Members questioned the progress made as the Action Plan provided as part of the report suggests that of the 10 actions, only 1 has been completed. The officer confirmed that progress has now been made on all 10 actions and they will share an updated action plan with the Committee to detail this.

RESOLVED, that the Audit Committee note the report and acknowledge the progress made.