Bulletin – 23rd November
Jonathan Owen, NALC CEO, writes…
GDPR
Last week I wrote to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to set out our latest concerns about the impact of the General Data Protection Regulation on our councils. In my letter strongly worded letter I called for an urgent update on progress developing sector specific guidance and our request for financial assistance to meet the cost burden in particular appointing a Data Protection Officer, registered my deep concern about the lack of contact from DCMS and the Information Commissioners Office, requested the new helpline for small businesses be made available to our councils, raised again whether clerks can be the DPO, explained we will continue to work with Parliamentarians on our concerns and we have already spoken to the local government minister Marcus Jones MP, and stated we would be writing further to DCMS ministers.
Rural Coalition speaks in Parliament
Margaret Clark, chairman of the Rural Coalition, which brings together a range of rural stakeholders including NALC, gave oral evidence to the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 Committee last week to promote the Rural Statement, you can watch the session again on Parliament TV.
Diversity Commission
Last month’s annual conference saw our Diversity Commission – whose aim is to promote and increase the diversity of councillors in local councils as well as in county associations and NALC – launch a number of important strands of its work. These include a new webpage providing more information about the Commission and its work, a Census Survey of Parish Councillors to build a picture of the demographics of our councillors, our call for ideas so you can tell us your thoughtson what you are doing or what needs to be done, and join our campaign by making a diversity pledge, which you can also do via Twitter by tweeting us @NALC using #DiversityCommission. For more information do get in touch via
Last NALC Event of The Year
NALC’s “Making Local Economic Growth” Work conference and exhibition is an essential event for councillors, council officers (including clerks, responsible financial officers, town centre managersand events and public relations officers), and county association members to join with other partsof the public sector (including the government and principal authorities), the private sector and thevoluntary sector to discuss the key policy issues around local economic development and growth.
The important themes for this one-day event will centre on local economic development,community led housing and planning, accessing funds and grants and the well being ofcommunities. The conference focuses on what local councils can do to create dynamicenvironments that encourage local economic growth to thrive and succeed. You will learn howto be ‘place shapers’ bringing the private, voluntary and public sectors together to bring aboutpositive economic change for local people. Simply put, this event is too important to miss if youwant influence and be kept informed about all that is happening in our sector. For further details see:-
GDPR: Staffordshire County Council presentation - 21st November
Attached hereto are copies of the slides presented at the GDPR Information Session in Stafford earlier this week. The Association is grateful to Lian Stibbs of the County Council for having given what proved to be a thought-provoking address; for the detail, member councils should refer to the series of six Legal Briefings on the subject of GDPR issued by NALC during the course of 2017. (Member councils which may have overlooked any previously issued documents may request by email the full set of NALC Briefings).
Further information about GDPR will be published just as soon as it is to hand.
Preparing for Audit
External Audit
Howard Midworth, the General Manager at SAAA Ltd, the sector-led body responsible for overseeing external audit arrangements for parish and town councils, has issued the following advice about the external audit arrangements for next year:
“The SAAA website gives details of the appointed auditors for all authorities together with contact details for the external audit firms, the scales of fees, as well as a set of frequently asked questions which are regularly updated. .Detailed guidance on the process and completion of the revised annual returns will be fully covered in the guidance notes sent out by the audit firms with the annual returns in March next year. An updated “practitioners guide” will be available by 31st March 2018.
All authorities will be sent an individual ‘notification of auditor appointment’ letter by the end of 2017, which will also provide an overview of the revised process for 2017/18 annual returns.The main changes are in respect of those authorities with under £25,000 annual turnover and who meet the qualifying criteria to enable them to certify themselves as exempt from a limited assurance review. For all other authorities who are still required or who wish to have a limited assurance review by their external auditor, the process has not changed significantly”
Advice from SPCA’s Honorary Auditor, Alan Toplis
The role of the Internal Auditor
As long as a council’s internal auditor is a "competent person", as defined by the document "Governance & Accountability for Local Councils - A Practitioners Guide" ("GALC"), and he/she has seen a current copy of GALC, there is no requirement for the person concerned to have a current practicing certificate.
A retired chartered accountant, for example, is therefore well equipped to be an internal auditor and it is not required for them to state on the Annual Return card that they are in any way qualified. Any internal auditor must understand that a 100% "tick and bash" is unnecessary and that the work is more about governance and conformance examination than full blown audit in the traditional sense of the word.
It is nonetheless usual for an Internal Auditor to do a 5% check of the audit trail (right back to precept, council approval, invoice, payment etc.) to ensure veracity, but not necessarily further than that.It almost goes without saying that the internal auditor must not have any family or personal links with the clerk or any councillors!
From the current fiscal year end councils with a turn over under £25k will have the option to elect not to have an external audit as long as they fully comply with the Transparency Code for Smaller Authorities 2015.It is recommended that in order to be ‘risk free’ the Internal Auditors of those councils opting for no External Audit from this fiscal year end will need to do at least some of the work which the External Auditor would normally have carried out (e.g. looking at any explanation of variances on the report card with large plus or minus differences, verifying the bank reconciliations, validating movements in assets etc.).
A council cannot appoint its own External Auditor. Commencing with the financial year 2017/18 Mazars LLP is the SAAA Ltd appointed auditor for the whole of Staffordshire; in any event, a council is not considered competent or legally capable to appoint its own auditor as it has a conflict of interest, and SAAA Ltd is the duly empowered Audit appointments authority.
All parish councils will still be required to produce an Annual Return card and all are still going to have to meet the statutory dates for completion of accountsand display all the required documents on notice boards and web sites.
Even if a council elects to have no External Audit,Mazars LLP will still be identified on a council’s notice of electors rights, as it will be the ‘long stop’ in case any of the electorate think that their council is not being governed correctly and they choose to complain. Unless there is any query to Mazars from your electorate during the public notice period, you will not be charged for the External Audit; but if any person contacts Mazars with a related query (even as simple as failure to properly display documents) then a council will be subject to a full External Audit and it will have to complete all the usual schedules and will be charged a full external audit fee.
If a council is under £25k turnover, it may still opt to have a full External Audit as in the past; moreover, if a council’s previous year’s card was qualified, theneither the internal or External Auditor may insist that it should undergo at least one more year’s External Audit.
Grants for War Memorials Up To £30k!
The next deadline for a grant from the War Memorials Trust is 31st December 2017. Grants of up to 75% of eligible costs for repair and conservation projects are currently available.
Please contact for further information.
SPCA Bulletin 17/47 (23rd November)