Issue - meetings

To obtain Committee endorsement of the revised policies enabling these to be adopted and published on the website and cascaded to all members of staff, members, partners, the Council’s suppliers, thus reinforcing Waverley’s stance of zero tolerance to Fraud and Corruption. 

Recommendation

It is recommended that the Committee

1.         endorses the revised policy; and

2.         recommends to Council that it be approved and that officers are instructed to cascade using suitable media to publicise these documents to the appropriate recipients.

Gail Beaton presented the revised Anti-Fraud and Corruption Policy to the Committee. The policy, attached at Annexe 4 to these minutes, had been revised as part of the scheduled cyclical review, to reflect changes in legislation, organisational restructure affecting job titles and positions and new developments in the methodology in tackling fraud. The policy was presented to the Audit Committee as a suite of documents to support awareness of the Council’s anti-fraud culture. However, Gail advised that each appendix was owned by a different service area and would be made available to members of staff as separate policies on the Council’s intranet.

A full revision of the Anti Money Laundering Policy and Guidance had been carried out to meet legislative and professional institutions best practice guides. It was proposed that these policies would be review annually by the responsible officers and, where necessary, endorsed by the Audit Committee every two years. Officers would be asked to cascade these policies throughout the authority, to suppliers, contractors and subcontractors where appropriate as part of contract terms and conditions. Presentation changes had been made to include all fraud and related policies as part of the authority’s Anti-Fraud and Corruption Policy.

The Committee queried whether there had been any experiences in the past of attempts to carry out money laundering, however officers advised that there was very little opportunity to do so due to the Council’s extensive due diligence processes.

In reference to the Fraud Investigation Plan, Cllr Hyman queried who was responsible for determining whether on not an allegation was true. Gail responded that she would investigate this as part of her role as Internal Audit Manager, and the final decision would be made by the Section 151 Officer, having reviewed the evidence.

The Committee made some further suggestions in relation to presentation and wording to improve the clarity of the policy.

Subject to the above comments, the Committee RESOLVED to endorse the policy and

RECOMMENDS to Council that

4.         the revised Anti-Fraud and Corruption Policy be approved and that offers be instructed to cascade using suitable media to publicise these documents to the appropriate recipients.