ANGUS Council had to face up to some difficult home truths this week after a number of embarrassing revelations at a meeting of the audit sub-committee.
While the internal and external reports presented to the committee had some positive findings, they were overshadowed by a determination that councillor infighting was undermining the effectiveness of the authority.
The independent audit by acco
untants Henderson Loggie also said that the council was "not able to demonstrate that it is taking informed and transparent decisions" and that while it witnessed a good level of scrutiny and debate at full council meetings, this was not apparent from their attendance at committee meetings.
The report states: "Poor working relationships between members may have an adverse influence on the impact and efficacy of the council and its services.
"From our review of council and committee minutes we have noted an increase in the number of amendments to motions and in the number of committee decisions referred to the full council.
"From our attendance at meetings, we have noted tension between the Alliance and the opposition."
The report continues: "At a meeting of the council in June 2008 the leader of the opposition proposed an amendment to the council's scrutiny arrangements which would have resulted in the audit sub-committee and the monitoring group being chaired by a member of the opposition.
"The motion was defeated, the council voting in favour of an Alliance amendment that the council 'believes that the existing scrutiny arrangements, which involve opposition councillors being members of the audit sub-committee and the monitoring group, are satisfactory at this time, and are consistent with the principles of sound governance, scrutiny and accountability'.
"We believe that this decision is not in line with recognised good practice."
While the findings may be embarrassing for the authority, there appears to be no end in sight to the bitter dispute between the Angus Alliance and the opposition over representation on the development standards and civic licensing committees.
The row over changes to the standing orders broke out at the beginning of November last year and resulted in SNP opposition members being either ousted or refusing to take up positions on the development standards and civic licensing committees.
At full strength, both committees should have 13 members, but the row has left development standards with one opposition member and four vacancies, and civic licensing with three opposition members and three vacancies.
Meanwhile, and just as embarrassingly for the council, an internal report has revealed that 79% of staff expenses claim forms contained errors, the majority of which related to a lack of detail and claims being signed off by staff that were not authorised to do so.
The report states: "The audit found that 79% of the claims checked contained errors, with the largest proportion relating to a lack of detail in relation to the purpose of the journey and claims being authorized by employees not on their departmental list as an authorized signatory.
"Other more significant errors across the board included no deductions for home to base mileage in 17% of the claims checked."
A council spokesperson said: "The figure of 79% represented the error rate on a sample of 136 claims that were tested. This error rate is high due to the fact that any administrative error, for example, start or end time of journey not noted, is classed as an error.
"The non-deduction of home to base mileage also includes instances where the incorrect deduction has been made and the effect of this can be an under-claim by the employee.
"The vast majority of errors are minor and there are no material financial implications arising from the issues highlighted in the audit. However, appropriate action is being taken to improve the necessary administrative procedures."
The internal audit also revealed a number of concerns in the way corporate services handles contractor selection.
Main issues include fleet services not openly advertising all contract opportunities, therefore not always following financial regulations, procurement guidelines and Angus Council policy; and environmental health issuing orders for the shredding of green waste, the cumulative cost of which is above the formal competitive tendering limits, but orders are issued for less than £5,000 to "comply" with financial regulations authorisation limits.
