Systems are improving
Published: 9 July, 2010
• THE Tribune quotes Councillor Phil Kelly as saying that the lack of formal contracts between the council and four out of 10 of its suppliers is “deplorable” and blaming the outgoing Lib Dem administration for this.
I agree that this would be deplorable if it were true, but it is not.
Cllr Kelly is chairman of the council’s audit committee, but was not present at the meeting at which the internal auditors’ report and the annual accounts were considered.
He may have had good reasons for his absence but none was reported to the meeting.
If he had been present, Cllr Kelly would have heard the independent members of the committee and me question the internal auditors about the lack of written contracts and be told that the sample of 10 in which they found four was not a typical blind sample, but a specially selected sample in which they expected to find a high proportion of unwritten contracts.
The internal auditor expressly reassured the committee that it was not true that 40 per cent of council contracts were unwritten.
Not all council contracts need to be in writing.
When an employee buys a bus ticket to travel on official business, a contract is formed between the council and the bus company.
If, as Cllr Kelly suggests, every council contract had to be recorded in writing, the council would seize up in a mass of red tape – just as it did when Labour last ran it.
The purpose of an internal audit is to find areas in which the council’s practices can be improved and the outgoing Lib Dem administration appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to help us do this.
Far from the “sloppy” administration which Cllr Kelly claims, PwC found that the council’s systems of internal control are good and have steadily been improving and it went out of its way to stress this during the meeting.
Of course, there are still some areas for further improvement. Under Lib Dem control the council concentrated on the areas for improvement.
CLLR JOHN GILBERT
Lib Dem, Highbury East