AGENDA

 

 

Audit and Risk Sub-committee Meeting

I hereby give notice that a Meeting of the Audit and Risk Subcommittee will be held on:

Date:

Thursday, 20 February 2020

Time:

9.30am

Location:

Council Chamber

Ground Floor, 175 Rimu Road

Paraparaumu

Mark de Haast

Group Manager

 


Audit and Risk Sub-committee Meeting Agenda

20 February 2020

 

Kapiti Coast District Council

Notice is hereby given that a meeting of the Audit and Risk Subcommittee will be held in the Council Chamber, Ground Floor, 175 Rimu Road, Paraparaumu, on Thursday 20 February 2020, 9.30am.

Audit and Risk Subcommittee Members

Mr Bryan Jackson

Chair

Cr Angela Buswell

Deputy Chair

Mayor K Gurunathan

Member

Deputy Mayor Janet Holborow

Member

Cr Gwynn Compton

Member

Mr Gary Simpson

Member

 


Audit and Risk Sub-committee Meeting Agenda

20 February 2020

 

Order Of Business

1         Welcome. 5

2         Council Blessing. 5

3         Apologies. 5

4         Declarations of Interest Relating to Items on the Agenda. 5

5         Public Speaking Time for Items Relating to the Agenda. 5

6         Members’ Business. 5

7         Updates. 5

Nil

8         Reports. 6

8.1           Proposal to conduct the audit of the Council on behalf of the Auditor-General for 2020, 2021 and 2022 financial years. 6

8.2           Ernst and Young Audit Plan for the year ended 30 June 2020. 18

8.3           Timetable for the Audit Plan for the year ended 30 June 2020. 40

8.4           Update on key 2018-19 Audit Findings. 44

8.5           Quarterly Treasury Compliance Report 55

8.6           Ombudsman Investigation into Christchurch City Council LGOIMA Practices. 65

8.7           Risk Management - Business Assurance Update. 88

8.8           Health and Safety Quarterly Reports: 1 July 2019 - 30 September 2019; and 1 October 2019 - 31 December 2019. 99

9         Confirmation of Public Excluded Minutes. 111

Nil

10       Public Excluded Reports. 112

Resolution to Exclude the Public. 112

10.1         Update on Ombudsman and Privacy Commissioner Investigations and Litigation Status Report 112

 

 


1          Welcome

2          Council Blessing

“As we deliberate on the issues before us, we trust that we will reflect positively on the  communities we serve. Let us all seek to be effective and just, so that with courage, vision and energy, we provide positive leadership in a spirit of harmony and compassion.”

I a mātou e whiriwhiri ana i ngā take kei mua i ō mātou aroaro, e pono ana mātou ka kaha tonu ki te whakapau mahara huapai mō ngā hapori e mahi nei mātou.  Me kaha hoki mātou katoa kia whaihua, kia tōtika tā mātou mahi, ā, mā te māia, te tiro whakamua me te hihiri ka taea te arahi i roto i te kotahitanga me te aroha.

3          Apologies

4          Declarations of Interest Relating to Items on the Agenda

Notification from Elected Members of:

4.1 – any interests that may create a conflict with their role as an elected member relating to the items of business for this meeting, and

4.2 – any interests in items in which they have a direct or indirect pecuniary interest as provided for in the Local Authorities (Members’ Interests) Act 1968

5          Public Speaking Time for Items Relating to the Agenda

6          Members’ Business

(a)        Public Speaking Time Responses

(b)        Leave of Absence

(c)        Matters of an Urgent Nature (advice to be provided to the Chair prior to the commencement of the meeting)

7          Updates

Nil


Audit and Risk Sub-committee Meeting Agenda

20 February 2020

 

8          Reports

8.1         Proposal to conduct the audit of the Council on behalf of the Auditor-General for 2020, 2021 and 2022 financial years

Author:                    Anelise Horn, Manager Financial Accounting

Authoriser:              Mark de Haast, Group Manager

 

Purpose of Report

1        This report informs the Audit and Risk Subcommittee of the proposal from Council’s auditors, Ernst & Young, to carry out the annual audits of Council on behalf of the Auditor-General for the 2020, 2021 and 2022 financial years.

Delegation

2        The Audit and Risk Subcommittee has delegated authority to consider this report under the following delegation in the Governance Structure, Section C.1.

·        Confirming the terms of engagement for each audit with a recommendation to the Council; and receiving the external audit reports for recommendation to the Council.

Background

3        The Auditor-General is the auditor of all ‘public entities’, including Kāpiti Coast District Council.

4        Under section 32 and 33 of the Public Audit Act 2001, the Auditor General has appointed Ernst & Young to carry out the annual audit of the Council’s financial statements and performance information for the three years ending 30 June 2020 to 30 June 2022.

5        Fees for the audit of public entities are set by the Auditor-General under section 42 of the Public Audit Act 2001. Ernst & Young has provided Council the opportunity to consider the proposed fees before being recommended for approval by the Auditor General. The Auditor-General will only set audit fees directly if both parties fail to reach an agreement.

CONSIDERATIONS

6        Ernst & Young sets out their proposal to conduct the statutory audit of the Council on behalf of the Auditor-General for the 2020, 2021 and 2022 Financial years (Refer to Appendix)

7        Ernst & Young’s proposed audit fees for the 2020, 2021 and 2022 Financial years are as follows:

8        Compared to the actual audit fees for the 2019 financial year, the proposed fee increase is due to the following:

·        Ernst and Young predict an annual staff salary cost movement of 2% per year for the three-year period.

·        20 additional audit hours are required by the audit team in 2021, for the implementation of the revised auditing standards ISA (NZ) 540 Auditing Accounting Estimates and Related Disclosures.

·        10 additional audit hours are required by the audit team in 2022, for auditing the impact of Council adopting PBE FRS 48 Service Performance Reporting.

 

9        Council Officers have considered this proposal and have determined that the proposed fee increases are fair and reasonable.

Considerations

Policy considerations

10      There are no policy considerations arising from this report. 

Legal considerations

11      There are no legal issues in addition to those already outlined in this report.   

Financial considerations

12      The total audit fees payable to Ernst & Young for the year ended 30 June 2020 are $188,400 plus GST. This fee includes the audit of the 2019/20 Annual Report including estimated disbursements and assessing the Council’s compliance with its Debenture Trust Deed for the year ended 30 June 2020. This has been included in the 2019/20 Annual Plan and no new money is required.

13      In addition, the Council’s Debenture Trust Deed requires a full audit of the Council’s register. Council has engaged PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the auditors of Computershare (the Council’s registrar), to complete a full audit of the Council’s register.  The fee for this service is $750 (inclusive of GST). This has been included in the 2019/20 Annual Plan and no new money is required.

Tāngata whenua considerations

14      There are no tāngata whenua considerations arising from this report. 

Significance and Engagement

Significance policy

15      This matter has a low level of significance under the Council’s Significance and Engagement Policy.

Publicity

16      There are no publicity considerations arising from this report.

Recommendations

17      That the Audit and Risk Subcommittee receives and accepts Ernst & Young’s proposal to conduct the audit of Council on behalf of the Auditor-General for the 2020, 2021 and 2022 financial years.

 

 

Appendices

1.       2020-22 Draft KCDC Audit Proposal Letter  

 


Audit and Risk Sub-committee Meeting Agenda

20 February 2020

 

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Audit and Risk Sub-committee Meeting Agenda

20 February 2020

 

8.2         Ernst and Young Audit Plan for the year ended 30 June 2020

Author:                    Anelise Horn, Manager Financial Accounting

Authoriser:              Mark de Haast, Group Manager

 

Purpose of Report

1        This report provides the Audit and Risk Subcommittee with a summary of the Ernst & Young Audit Plan for the year ending 30 June 2020.

Delegation

2        The Audit and Risk Subcommittee has delegated authority to consider this report under the following delegation in the Governance Structure, Section C.1.

·        Confirming the terms of engagement for each audit with a recommendation to the Council; and receiving the external audit reports for recommendation to the Council.

·        Obtaining from external auditors any information relevant to the council’s financial statements and assessing whether appropriate action has been taken by management in response to the above.

Background

3        Council’s Auditors, Ernst & Young (Audit) have been engaged to undertake the audit of Council’s Annual Report, including the Council’s Summary Annual Report and compliance with its Debenture Trust Deed, for the year ended 30 June 2020.

4        The Audit Plan is attached as Appendix 1 to this report. This provides an overview of audit’s focus areas, their risk assessment and their audit approach for the year ended 30 June 2020.

Considerations

Audit focus areas and risk assessment

5        The areas of audit focus, which are broadly consistent with the previous year are summarised below:

·        Infrastructure assets;

·        Rates setting, rates invoicing and collection;

·        Non-financial performance reporting;

·        New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) subsidies;

·        Expenditure, procurement and tendering;

·        Debt facilities and derivatives; and

·        Landfill aftercare provision

Materiality

6        Audit has set their materiality threshold at $1.7 million, being 2% of forecast expenditure. Materiality is broadly defined as the quantum of any misstatements (through error or otherwise), that would likely mislead users of the financial statements. Any identified misstatements impacting on Council’s operating result by more than $90,000 will be reported to the Subcommittee by way of Audit’s Closing Report on conclusion of their audit.

Policy considerations

7        There are no policy implications arising from this report.  

Legal considerations

8        There are no legal issues arising from this report.  

Financial considerations

9        The total audit fees payable to Ernst & Young for the year ended 30 June 2020 are estimated to be $188,400 plus GST. This fee includes the audit of the 2019/20 Annual Report ($185,200, including reasonable disbursements) and Council’s compliance with its Debenture Trust Deed ($3,200) for the year ended 30 June 2020. Provision for this audit fee has been included in the 2019/20 Annual Plan.

Tāngata whenua considerations

10      There are no tāngata whenua considerations arising from this report

Significance and Engagement

Significance policy

11      This matter has a low level of significance under the Council’s Significance and Engagement Policy.  

Publicity

12      There are no specific publicity considerations arising from this report. 

 

Recommendations

13      That the Audit and Risk Subcommittee receives and notes the Ernst & Young Audit Plan for the year ended 30 June 2020 attached as Appendix 1 to this report.

 

 

Appendices

1.       Ernst and Young Audit Plan for the year ended 30 June 2020  

 


Audit and Risk Sub-committee Meeting Agenda

20 February 2020

 

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Audit and Risk Sub-committee Meeting Agenda

20 February 2020

 

8.3         Timetable for the Audit Plan for the year ended 30 June 2020

Author:                    Anelise Horn, Manager Financial Accounting

Authoriser:              Mark de Haast, Group Manager

 

Purpose of Report

1        This report updates the Audit and Risk Subcommittee on the proposed timetable for the audit of Council’s Annual Report and Debenture Trust Deed for the year ended 30 June 2020.

Delegation

2        The Audit and Risk Subcommittee has delegated authority to consider this report under the following delegation in the Governance Structure, Section C.1.

·        Confirming the terms of engagement for each audit with a recommendation to the Council; and receiving the external audit reports for recommendation to the Council.

·        Obtaining from external auditors any information relevant to the council’s financial statements and assessing whether appropriate action has been taken by management in response to the above.

Background

3        The Auditor-General is the auditor of all ‘public entities’, including the Kāpiti Coast District Council.

4        Under section 32 and 33 of the Public Audit Act 2001, the Auditor General has appointed Ernst & Young to carry out the annual audit of the Council’s financial statements and performance information for the years ending 30 June 2020 to 30 June 2022.

5        Fees for the audit of public entities are set by the Auditor General under section 42 of the Public Audit Act 2001.

6        The nature and scope of these audit engagements are set out in the Letters of Engagement as approved by Council, the Council’s auditors, Ernst & Young and the Council’s Trustee, Covenant Trustee Services. The latter is only applicable to the audit of the Debenture Trust Deed.

 

CONSIDERATIONS

Audit Plan for the year ended 30 June 2020

7        Ernst & Young is presenting their audit plan for the audit of the 2019/20 annual report to the Audit and Risk Subcommittee at this meeting. (refer to Ernst and Young Audit Plan for the year ended 30 June 2020)

 

Audit Approach

8        Following agreement with Ernst & Young, the audit of the Council’s financial statements and non-financial information for the year ended 30 June 2020 will be completed in two separate stages. Stage one comprises an audit of the revaluation of the infrastructure assets and stage two comprises an audit of the financial statements, non-financial performance information and a full review of the draft 2019/20 Annual report.

 

9        Stage one includes:

Property, plant and equipment (PPE) is the largest and most complex asset category on the balance sheet and a separate audit stage is allocated to the revaluation of infrastructure assets.

Based on councils annual rolling asset revaluation programme, Council is revaluing the following asset classes as at 31 March 2020:

·    Land and buildings (including land under roads)

·    Parks and reserves structures

·    Water, wastewater and stormwater (including seawalls and river control)

The valuation of infrastructure assets is judgemental and there are a number of key assumptions that the independent valuer is required to make, based on their experience and expertise, that have the potential to materially impact the resulting asset values. For this reason, the audit of the asset revaluation will be done in isolation of the other financial statement elements and is scheduled to take place from Monday 8 June 2020 to Friday 19 June 2020.

 

10      Stage two includes:

·        A substantive audit of the draft financial statements (including a draft financial overview and a draft Report Disclosure Statement (Prudence Benchmarks)).

·        A substantive audit of the non-financial performance information (service performance measures).

·        A detailed review of the draft Annual Report and Summary Annual Report for the year ended 30 June 2020.

·        The audit of the Debenture Trust Deed for the year ended 30 June 2020.

This is scheduled to take place from Monday 10 August 2020 to Friday 11 September 2020.

 

2019/20 Annual Report adoption timetable

11      The table below sets out the scheduled meeting dates of the Audit and Risk Subcommittee, and Council meetings that are relevant to the adoption of the 2019/20 Annual Report.

12      Agenda items relevant to the 2019/20 Annual Report have been outlined.

Meeting of…

Meeting Date

Agenda Items to include…

Audit and Risk Subcommittee

Thursday
20 February 2020

For Review and feedback:

1.   Ernst and Young’s audit plan for the audit of the 2019/20 annual report.

Audit and Risk Subcommittee

Thursday 17 September 2020

For Information:

1.   Ernst and Young’s Closing Report to the Audit and Risk Subcommittee for the year ended 30 June 2020.

2.   Ernst & Young’s Report on Control Findings for the year ended 30 June 2020.

For Decision:

3.   Review and recommend adoption of the 2019/20 Annual Report to Council.

Council

Thursday
1 October 2020

For Decision

1.   Adopt the 2019/20 Annual Report.

 

13      The table below summarises the combined timings of both the audit process and the Council meetings at which the audit outputs are tabled for information and or decision-making purposes, which will result in the adoption of the Annual Report.

 

Summary table of audit processes and related Council meetings:

Considerations

Policy considerations

14      There are no policy considerations at this stage.

Legal considerations

15      There are no legal considerations at this time.

Financial considerations

16      The total audit fees payable to Ernst & Young for the year ended 30 June 2020 are estimated to be $188,400 plus GST. This fee includes the audit of the 2019/20 Annual Report ($185,200, including reasonable disbursements) and Council’s compliance with its Debenture Trust Deed ($3,200) for the year ended 30 June 2020. This audit fee is included in the 2019/20 Annual Plan.

17      In addition to the above, the Debenture Trust Deed requires the Council to complete a full audit of its debt/security stock register. Council has engaged PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), the auditors of Computershare (the registrar), to complete this audit. The fee for this service is $750 (inclusive of GST). Similarly, this fee is included in the 2019/20 Annual Plan.

Tāngata whenua considerations

18      There are no tāngata whenua considerations.

Significance and Engagement

Significance policy

19      This matter has a low level of significance under the Council’s Significance and Engagement Policy.

Publicity

20      There are no publicity considerations at this stage. 

 

Recommendations

21      That the Audit and Risk Subcommittee notes the timetable for the audit of the Council’s Annual Report and the Council’s Debenture Trust Deed for the year ended 30 June 2020.

 

 

Appendices

Nil

 


Audit and Risk Committee Meeting Agenda

20 February 2020

 

8.4         Update on key 2018-19 Audit Findings

Author:                    Anelise Horn, Manager Financial Accounting

Authoriser:              Mark de Haast, Group Manager

 

Purpose of Report

1        This report provides the Audit and Risk Subcommittee with a progress update regards Ernst & Young’s Report on Control Findings for the year ended 30 June 2019.

Delegation

2        The Audit and Risk Subcommittee has delegated authority to consider this report under the following delegation in the Governance Structure, Section C.1.

·        Reviewing and maintaining the internal control framework.

Obtaining from external auditors any information relevant to the Council’s financial statements and assessing whether appropriate action has been taken by management in response to the above.Background

3        In accordance with New Zealand Auditing Standards, Ernst & Young (Audit) performed a review of the design and operating effectiveness of the Council’s significant financial reporting processes as part of their audit for the year ended 30 June 2019.

4        Control risk matters and/or issues are classified as high, moderate or low. Control risk definitions are as follows:

·        High Risk – matters and/or issues are considered to be fundamental to the mitigation of material risk, maintenance of internal control or good corporate governance. Action should be taken either immediately or within three months.

·        Moderate Risk – matters and/or issues are considered to be of major importance to maintenance of internal control, good corporate governance or best practice for processes. Action should normally be taken within six months.

·        Low Risk A weakness which does not seriously detract from the internal control framework. If required, action should be taken within 6 -12 months.

5        Audit identified eight control risk issues for the year ended 30 June 2019, ranging from low to moderate risk rankings. The table at the end of the report, details the year to date progress against these control findings.

6        In keeping with standard practice, Audit will consider whether these control findings can be closed-out, as part of their audit for the year ended 30 June 2020.

Considerations

Policy considerations

7        There are no policy implications arising from this report.

Legal considerations

8        There are no legal considerations arising from this report.

Financial considerations

9        Financial issues have been covered as part of this report. 

Tāngata whenua considerations

10      There are no tāngata whenua considerations arising from this report.

 

Significance and Engagement

Significance policy

11      This matter has a low level of significance under the Council’s Significance and Engagement Policy.

Publicity

12      There are no publicity considerations. 

 

Recommendations

13      That the Audit and Risk Subcommittee notes the progress update in regards to Ernst & Young’s Report on Control findings for the year ended 30 June 2019 and that Ernst & Young will re-assess these as part of their audit for the year ended 30 June 2020.

 

Appendices

Nil

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Summary of Control Findings for the year ended 30 June 2019

1. Service requests - Accuracy of response and resolution times (Moderate)

Target date for completion and current status

31/03/2020

 

On track with manual reviews. System upgrade likely to take longer. 

Ernst & Young Audit Observation

In completing our testing of performance reporting information we identified multiple instances where the response and resolution times used as a basis for calculating measures were inconsistent with the times indicated on job sheets that were completed for those jobs by the staff attending to the request.

One particular issue we observed that occurred for multiple items tested was requests being marked as responded to or resolved too early. This was observed for both water supply and waste water when measuring response or resolution times to urgent and non-urgent requests. This is primarily the result of the first action logged in response to the request being treated as either KCDC having responded to, or resolved, the matter when in actual fact the action was a step towards either responding to, or resolving, the matter.

Since a number of performance measures require reporting of response or resolution times discrepancies in the time recorded will lead to incorrect outcomes being reported. Whilst this has implications for Council’s non-financial performance reporting it also impacts management’s ability to understand the team’s responsiveness to ratepayer requests and any resourcing or process issues that may need to be remedied to allow timely responses to requests.

EY Audit Recommendation

Requests logged in Council’s system should be reviewed on a periodic basis to ensure the time to respond to, or resolve, matters is being accurately reflected in the system.

Action Plan

We agree with the observation. The MagiQ system allows multiple actions to be recorded against a service request.  In some cases, the final response time is recorded on the second or later action.  Our analysis found that, although the correct response time is being entered in the system, the automatic reports used to calculate the response time measures only capture the time that the first action is completed.  This has meant that in cases when the final response time is not when the first action is completed, the calculations of median response time are being made incorrectly.

The issues have been documented and several solution options will be investigated further:

·      Re-design the service request system and data capture process, to allow for reports to accurately calculate the correct median response time.  This is the most robust and long-term solution, but would be the most complex to implement.

·      Adopt a workaround whereby staff ensure that only the first action can be used for the resolving action, allowing existing reports to calculate the median response time accurately.

·      Continue the current practice of cleaning the report data manually to ensure that the measure is reported accurately, but undertake this on a more regular basis throughout the year as recommended above.  This is a short-term solution that does not fix the root cause of the problem.  However, in advance of a more sustainable solution being implemented, a review and cleaning of the first two months of data for FY19/20 is already underway.

 

Responsibility:

Manager Corporate Planning and Reporting and Chief Information Officer

Progress Update

Data from the first quarter of the 19/20 year has been fully reviewed to ensure that both the response and/or resolution times to service request matters is being accurately reflected in the system.  This will be repeated during the 2019/20 financial year to ensure that the time to respond to, or resolve matters is being accurately reflected in the system.

Manual reviews of the data are time consuming and work is continuing to explore a re-design of the service request system and data capture process to allow for reports to accurately calculate the correct median response time. 

 

 

 

2. Service requests - Monitoring of roading requests for service (Moderate)

Target date for completion and current status

31/03/2020

 

On track with manual reviews. System upgrade likely to take longer. 

Ernst & Young Audit Observation

For the access and transport measure relating to the Council’s response time to requests for service for roads and footpaths Council were unable to accurately determine if requests for service had been responded to within the target timeframes. The information for this measure is sourced from two separate systems, MagiQ which holds the details of requests, and RAMM which holds the details of work and actions undertaken. The primary issue is that there is insufficient clarity of how some requests in MagiQ can be linked to actions taken recorded in RAMM.

Because requests for service in MagiQ are unable to be fully mapped to work undertaken recorded in RAMM, Council is unable to report an outturn for the year against this target. The issue also limits Council’s ability to measure responsiveness from the perspective of managing operations and considering performance on a regular basis and how resource should be allocated.

EY Audit Recommendation

We recommend that work is completed to improve the interfacing or flow of data between these two systems. Alternatively work completed could be recorded in MagiQ against each of the relevant requests for service.

Action Plan

Investigative work will be needed to determine the best way forward to accurately measure response time to service requests for road and footpath work. The ideal would be an automated flow of data between MagiQ and RAMM where the interface is seamless and error-free.  However, if that proves unattainable we will have to look at establishing systems to achieve manual updates of service request response time information from RAMM to MagiQ at the same time that completion times are entered into MagiQ from RAMM. This may require additional consistency checks between the two databases to ensure that request types and priority assignments are the same in the two systems so that response time targets are equivalent. At first glance this appears to be a substantial piece of work and will probably exceed the recommended six-month timeframe.

Responsibility:

Chief Information Officer and Manager Corporate Planning and Reporting

Progress Update

Council’s road maintenance contractor has identified a solution to automate service requests data from Council’s MagiQ system into RAMM to ensure the data is consistent across both systems. Currently this is a one-way data transfer, and solutions to enable two-way data transfer are being investigated.

Data is currently being manually reviewed as the two-way automatic data transfer is still likely to take several months to implement.

 


Audit and Risk Sub-committee Meeting Agenda

20 February 2020

 

 

3. Service requests – Duplicate requests for services (Low)

Target date for completion and current status

30/06/2020

 

On track

Ernst & Young Audit Observation

When reviewing requests for service data for the water supply and wastewater management activities we identified duplicate requests for service for the same matter. In some instances, requests for service were closed with zero response times if they were confirmed as duplicates. This has an impact on median response times through reducing this measure incorrectly.

We also noted instances where Council initiated requests for service for planned work and these were included in the calculation of median response times. The request for service based metrics are primarily intended to measure response times to ratepayer requests as opposed to Council’s internal work program.

Duplicate requests included in the system impact the reported results especially in instances where duplicates have a response time set to zero and have been included in the calculation of the median.

The inclusion of requests for service from Council employees means the measures become less focused on Council’s responsiveness to ratepayer requests.

EY Audit Recommendation

We recommend implementing controls that prevent duplicate requests for service being recorded in the system. Alternatively, a periodic review of requests within the system could be undertaken to identify and remove duplicate requests. The same review could ensure Council generated requests are clearly labelled as such and excluded from the calculation of the measure.

Action Plan

We agree with the observation. 

Several solution options will be investigated further in conjunction with the response in 2.1.1:

1.    Re-design the service request system and data capture process, to ensure that duplicate requests, internal requests, planned work, and other non-applicable requests can be excluded from the calculation of the performance measure.

2.    Continue the current practice of cleaning the report data manually to ensure that the measures are reported accurately, but undertake this on a more regular basis throughout the year as recommended above. 

As noted in 2.1.1, we have already begun a review and cleaning of the report data for FY19/20.  As well as correcting the response times, this task also includes removing duplicates and non-applicable service requests from the calculated median response times.

Responsibility:

Manager Corporate Planning and Reporting, and Chief Information Officer

Progress Update

Data from the first quarter of the 19/20 year has been fully reviewed for duplicate service requests to ensure that both the response and/or resolution times to service request matters is being accurately reflected in the system.  Similarly, this will be repeated during the 2019/20 financial year to ensure that the time to respond to, or resolve matters is being accurately reflected in the system.

Similar to above, work is continuing to explore a re-design of the service request system and data capture process, (including removing any duplicate requests), to allow for reports to accurately calculate the correct median response time. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Service requests – Manual reorganisation of requests for services (Low)

Target date for completion and current status

30/06/2020

 

On track

Ernst & Young Audit Observation

To calculate outcomes for some measures data was extracted from the system and put through a further manual process to determine the category of the request. This involved adjusting the category of the request per the system and then calculating the measure to be reported based on the excel spreadsheet with updated categorisations.

We identified instances where information extracted from the system subjected to further manual categorisation was incorrectly categorised affecting the reported results. For example, requests for service that did not relate to the particular activity or urgency categorisation were included in calculating the outcome for that measure.

We also identified instances where subsequent to information being extracted from the system changes were made to the information in the system and the associated spreadsheet wasn’t updated to reflect these changes. Because the measures are calculated based on the data in the spreadsheet this results in information relevant to the request for service being excluded.

Incorrect categorisation of data could lead to measures being incorrectly calculated.

EY Audit Recommendation

We recommend that processes be updated to allow for correct classification of requests for service at the point the requests are received. If this is impractical we would suggest that requests for service be reviewed on a periodic basis and reclassified within the system when a reclassification is required.

Action Plan

The points above appear to refer to the current system for assessing and reporting on Stormwater and Coastal service requests.

We agree that this system should be amenable to significant improvement.  However, following our own analysis we have further characterised the issue:

Firstly, our understanding is that ‘instances where information extracted from the system subjected to further manual categorisation was incorrectly categorised affecting the reported results’ relates to two separate matters;

i)            Where instances of service requests related to stormwater outlets were included in calculations of the Coastal measure for ‘Urgent requests to repair sea walls or rock revetments’ when they should only be accounted for in the Coastal measure for ‘Stormwater beach outlets are kept clear’. This has been fixed in the current reporting and is a straightforward fix even in the existing ‘manual’ spreadsheet method of reporting on Coastal KPI measures.

ii)            There were three instances of stormwater service requests (out of 89) which were classified as urgent in error. This error rate is unlikely to be improved by adopting the suggestion that ‘processes be updated to allow for correct classification of request for service at the point requests are received’.  Requests are received at the call centre for the most part and staff often either a) do not have sufficient or accurate enough information from the caller to correctly classify the request, or b) do not have the experience to be able to do so. This is why we rely on a subsequent, secondary, classification process by our stormwater team, who occasionally make errors.

Secondly, it was identified that ‘instances where subsequent to information being extracted from the system changes were made to the information in the system and the associated spreadsheet wasn’t updated to reflect these change’.  It isn’t clear how many instances of this were found but to our knowledge there weren’t many and we expect they would be largely immaterial to the measures being reported on or the response time calculations. Many of the changes made to request types subsequent to data being extracted from the system do not have any material bearing on the secondary categorisation made by the stormwater team and to revisit MagiQ on a regular basis to update these would be both time-consuming and probably not very productive.

A full improvement solution to MagiQ to enable it to generate more stream-lined and efficient Coastal and Stormwater service request reporting will take significant investigation and discussion with both MagiQ, regarding the system’s capabilities, and the Coastal and Stormwater team, regarding their requirements. We envisage the following:

i)            introducing a pro-forma report that doesn’t require manual set-up each week and only needs date ranges entered to provide the appropriately filtered list of service requests each week.

ii)            ideally, we would then like to see enhancements to the system so that there are a range of drop-down or pick-list categories that the Coastal and Stormwater team can use for providing secondary and tertiary categorisations to each service request (so that this is done in MagiQ rather than on a separate spreadsheet). This categorisation process would include categorisations as to which service requests are Coastal or Stormwater requests, and further to that which are urgent/non-urgent, council/private issues, affect buildings/or don’t etc

iii)           if such improvements are feasible then when that secondary categorisation process is complete each week a report should be able to be generated from MagiQ which generates the equivalent of the current Stormwater and Coastal service request spreadsheets.

This approach would significantly improve the efficiency of the current process and improve the audit trail.  It would not remove the human judgement factor behind the categorisation process as that is how the categorisations are currently made in MagiQ in any case. We would need to investigate whether there is an efficient process for checking whether subsequent changes to categorisations of service requests not initially identified as relevant for Coastal or Stormwater reporting purposes have, as a result of a re-categorisation in MagiQ, become relevant for those purposes.

This will be a significant piece of work and will need to be undertaken in concert with the planned upgrade to MagiQ and other proposed improvements recommended to improve reporting of actual resolution times and avoidance of counting duplicate service requests in those calculations.

Responsibility:

Manager Corporate Planning and Reporting, and Chief Information Officer

Progress Update

Work is continuing to explore a re-design of the service request system and data capture process, (including removing any duplicate requests) that will include solutions (i) and (iii) above as well.

The additional categorisation proposed at (ii) above may require external resource from MagiQ and may take longer to complete.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. Corporate policies due for review (Low)

Target date for completion and current status

30/06/2020

 

On-track

Ernst & Young Audit Observation

We observed various employee manuals and policy documents were last updated over 3 years ago. Specifically, we noted the below policies are currently overdue for review and update:

a.    Receipt of gifts and hospitality

b.    Rewards and recognition policy

c.    Mitigation of fraud

d.    Employee code of conduct

e.    Elected member code of conduct

Policies and other guidance documents should be updated on a regular basis to ensure any changes in circumstances that require additional guidance are incorporated on a timely basis.

EY Audit Recommendation

We recommend that corporate policies be monitored and updated on a regular basis.

Action Plan

We accept the findings and recommendation from audit. The register of corporate policies, including review dates, will be updated and monitored by Corporate Services going forward as part of the wider policy programme.

 

Responsibility:

Manager Research and Policy, Corporate Services

Progress Update

The Research and Policy team are currently developing a programme of work to review, update and maintain Corporate Policies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. Timeliness of purchase order initiation (Low)

Target date for completion and current status

30/06/2020

 

On-track

Ernst & Young Audit Observation

During our testing of the expenditure and payments process we observed that some purchase orders were generated subsequent to the receipt of invoices.

Without adequate controls for processing and reconciling purchase orders, invoices and the receipt of goods and services there is an increased risk inappropriate or erroneous expenditure is incurred or reported. A purchase order system works most effectively when purchase orders are approved prior to goods or services being purchased. After the transaction has occurred there may be less opportunity to change the agreement that has been entered into.

 

EY Audit Recommendation

We recommend purchase orders are raised and appropriately approved prior to placing orders with suppliers.

Action Plan

Management accepts the recommendation and is currently working on a programme for induction and increased training for staff to ensure there is a consistent high standard of compliance with the Procurement Policy across all areas of the Council.  The Finance team worked with the suppliers during the 2018/19 year to highlight the importance of requesting an EPO number from Council before beginning any work.

Responsibility:

Chief Financial Officer

Progress Update

Council-wide procurement training continues and the Finance team are actively providing one-on-one EPO training for new staff members.

Furthermore, Council is currently investigating how technology can be used more effectively in the supplier payment space through automation of the accounts payable function. A Request for Proposal (RFP) was issued in January 2020 with full implementation of the selected solution targeted by 30 June 2020.

Automation will strengthen the discipline of initiating an EPO when the goods or services are ordered as the EPO number will be a key field on the supplier invoice required by the payment solution.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7. Approval of expenditure (Low)

Target date for completion and current status

30/06/2020

 

On-track

Ernst & Young Audit Observation

KCDC’s General Expenses policy states “one-up authorisation must be given to the person who will benefit or might be perceived to benefit from the expenditure.”

We noted two instances where an expense claim was either authorised by a person who was not one up from the individual that incurred the cost or was not one up from the most senior individual that benefited or might be perceived to have benefited from the expenditure. In both instances we are satisfied that the expenditure was appropriate but have recommendations regarding the execution of the relevant controls.

This may increase the risk that inappropriate expenditure goes undetected.

This policy also serves to safeguard staff in that in instances where they may have been perceived to have benefited from Council expenditure an independent member of staff has concurred with their judgement that the costs are appropriate.

 

EY Audit Recommendation

We recommend that expenses incurred are approved in a manner that is in line with KCDC’s policies

Action Plan

Management accepts the findings and recommendation from Audit. Corporate Services will seek to increase Council-wide access to and awareness of all corporate policies

Responsibility:

Chief Financial Officer

Progress Update

The Accounts Payable team are manually reviewing each expense claim submitted for payment to ensure that it has been approved in accordance with the general expense policy. If not, the claim is reverted to the relevant staff members to be corrected.

The General Expense policy is included in the programme of work being developed by the Research and Policy team to review, update and maintain Corporate Policies.

 

 

 

 

8. Review of useful life of landfill asset (Low)

Target date for completion and current status

30/06/2020

 

On-track

Ernst & Young Audit Observation

The useful life of the Otaihanga landfill asset has not been thoroughly re-assessed recently. The asset is nearing the end of its capacity and is only able to accept clean-fill going forwards.  There is currently an asset recorded on balance sheet for the Otaihanga landfill that has a residual useful life spanning a number of years. If the landfill is near to the end of its useful life and the asset has limited remaining value the residual useful life used for accounting purposes may need to be reduced or the value attributed to the asset may need to be decreased.

EY Audit Recommendation

The current useful life of the landfill suggests that benefit will continue to be derived from the landfill over a number of years going forward. We recommend that Council consider the nature and timing of the expected benefits from the landfill and use this as context for evaluating if the current useful life is still appropriate and if Council is likely to receive future benefit from the landfill that broadly equates to the current carrying value of the landfill asset.

 

Action Plan

Management accepts the findings and will assess the economic life of the asset during the 2019/20 year.

 

Responsibility:

Chief Financial Officer

Progress Update

The economic life of the Otaihanga landfill asset is scheduled to be reviewed in April 2020.

 

 


Audit and Risk Sub-committee Meeting Agenda

20 February 2020

 

8.5         Quarterly Treasury Compliance Report

Author:                    Anelise Horn, Manager Financial Accounting

Authoriser:              Mark de Haast, Group Manager

 

Purpose of Report

1        This report provides confirmation to the Audit and Risk Subcommittee of the Council’s compliance with its Treasury Management Policy (Policy) for the six months ended 31 December 2019.

Delegation

2        The Audit and Risk Subcommittee has delegated authority to consider this report under the following delegation in the Governance Structure, Section C.1.

Ensuring that the Council has in place a current and comprehensive risk management framework and making recommendations to the Council on risk mitigation.

Background

3        The Policy sets out a framework for the Council to manage its borrowing and investment activities in accordance with the Council’s objectives and incorporates legislative requirements.

 

4        The Policy mandates regular treasury reporting to management and the Strategy and Operations Committee, as well as quarterly compliance reporting to the Audit and Risk Subcommittee.

 

5        In order to assess the effectiveness of the Council’s treasury management activities and compliance to the Policy, certain performance measures and parameters have been prescribed. These are:

·        cash/debt position;

·        liquidity/funding control limits;

·        interest rate risk control limits;

·        counterparty credit risk;

·        specific borrowing limits; and

·        risk management performance.

 

6        Given this is the first Audit and Risk Subcommittee meeting for this triennium, this report covers the compliance reporting for both the first quarter (July to September) and the second quarter (October to December) of the 2019/2020 financial year.


 

discussion

Cash/Debt Position

7        Table 1 below shows the Council’s net debt position as at 31 December 2019 against the 2019/20 full year budget and the prior year closing balance.

 

8        During the past six months, the Council has issued $25 million of new debt towards prefunding the April 2020, October 2020 and May 2021 debt maturities. The funds were placed on term deposit, at the most favourable market rates available at that time, as part of the Council’s prefunding programme.

9        During the same period, $20 million of long term debt matured during September 2019. This was fully funded through the Council’s prefunding programme and was repaid from term deposits maturing on the day.

10      The table below shows (a) the movement in the Council’s external debt balance and (b) the movement in the Council’s pre-funding programme by debt maturity, for the six months ended 31 December 2019.

         

 

11      As at 31 December 2019, the Council had $61.08 million of cash, term deposits and borrower notes on hand, and relates mainly to the Council’s debt pre-funding programme. This is broken down as follows:

 

12      The Council is targeting through its financial strategy to keep net borrowings below 200% of total operating income. At 31 December 2019, the Council is forecasting its net borrowings to be 185.8% of total operating income at 30 June 2020.

13      For the six months ended 31 December 2019, the Council has not breached its net debt upper limit, as shown in the chart below:

 

 

Liquidity/Funding control limits

14      Liquidity and funding management focuses on reducing the concentration of risk at any point so that the overall borrowings cost is not increased unnecessarily and/or the desired maturity profile is not compromised due to market conditions. This risk is managed by spreading and smoothing debt maturities and establishing maturity compliance buckets.

15      Since October 2015 the Council’s treasury strategy has included a debt pre-funding programme. The Policy allows pre-funding of Council debt maturities up to 18 months in advance, including re-financing. Market conditions have been favourable for this approach, where the Council draws down debt early and is able to invest the funds on term deposit for a positive net return.

16      The debt pre-funding programme was highlighted by Standard & Poor’s (S&P) in their July 2019 review, where Council’s credit rating was upgraded from A+ to AA with S&P noting the Council’s exceptional liquidity coverage.

17      The following graph presents the Council’s debt maturity dates in relation to the financial year in which the debt was issued. This demonstrates that since 2016/17, the Council has actively reduced risk concentration by spreading debt maturity dates and debt maturity values.

 

 

18      Debt maturities must fall within maturity compliance buckets. These maturity buckets are as follows:

Maturity Period

Minimum

Maximum

0 to 3 years

10%

70%

3 to 5 years

10%

60%

5 to 10 years

10%

50%

10 years plus

0%

20%

 

19      For the 6 months ending 31 December 2019, the Council has been fully compliant with its debt maturity limits, as shown by the chart below. The upper limits, as shown by dashed lines, relate to the bars of the same colour. For example, the 0 to 3 year upper limit of 70% is in blue. Actual maturities in the 0­3 year bucket are represented by the blue bars. The Council has no long term debt maturing in ten years’ time or beyond.

 

 

Interest rate risk control limits

20      The Council issues all debt on a floating rate basis, as lower interest rates are realised this way, and uses fixed interest rate swaps (hedges) to minimise exposure at any one time to interest rate fluctuations. This ensures more certainty of interest rate costs when setting our annual plan and long term plan budgets.

21      Without such hedging, the Council would have difficulty absorbing adverse interest rate movements. A 1% increase in interest rates on $215 million in net debt would equate to additional interest expense of $2.15 million per annum. Conversely, fixing interest rates does however reduce the Council’s ability to benefit from falling and/or more favourable interest rate movements.

22      The objectives of any treasury strategy are therefore to smooth out the effects of interest rate movements, while being aware of the direction of the market, and to be able to respond accordingly.

23      The Policy sets out the following interest rate limits:

Major control limit where the total notional amount of all interest rate risk management instruments (i.e. interest rate swaps) must not exceed the Council’s total actual debt, and;

Fixed/Floating Risk Control limit, that specifies that at least 55% of Council’s borrowings must be fixed, up to a maximum of 100%.


 

 

24      The table below shows the Council’s hedging value for the six months ending 31 December 2019.

 

25      The Policy Fixed/Floating Risk Control Limit was briefly breached during the month of September 2019. This breach occurred because planned debt pre-funding of $5 million was not issued. This has since been corrected and the debt pre-funding programme is closely monitored by Council Officers.

 

26      Similar to debt maturities, hedging instrument maturities must also fall within maturity compliance buckets.  These maturity compliance buckets are as follows:

  Period

Minimum

Maximum

1 to 3 years

15%

60%

3 to 5 years

15%

60%

5 to 10 years

15%

60%

10 years plus

0%

20%

 

27      The Council has been fully compliant for the six months ended 31 December 2019, as shown by the following chart. Note that maturities falling within 1 year are not included.

 

 

 

 

Counterparty Credit Risk

28      The policy sets maximum limits on transactions with counterparties. The purpose of this is to ensure the Council does not concentrate its investments or risk management instruments with a single party.

 

30      The policy sets the gross counter party limits as follows:

 

31      The Council was in full compliance with all counterpart credit limits for the six months ended 31 December 2019. The tables below show the Council’s investments and risk management instruments holdings per counterparty during the quarter.

Term deposits

          *Policy Limit: 60% of total investments or $25 million; whichever is greater

Interest rate swaps

           *Policy Limit: 50% of total instruments or $80 million; whichever is greater

 

 

Specific Borrowing Limits

32      In managing debt, the Council is required to adhere to the limits below. The Council fully complied with these limits for the six months ended 31 December 2019 (or a period as otherwise specified) and the results are shown below:

 

        

Risk Management Performance

33      The following table shows the Council’s interest income and expense for the year to date, along with the weighted average cost of borrowing (WACB)

34      Council’s net interest cost year to date is $181,00 favourable to budget. This is mainly due to a lower external borrowings balance at the start of the 2019/20 financial year than planned.

35      Council has been effective in its treasury management with its weighted average cost of funds being 0.51% lower that budget as at the 31 December 2019.

36      The following graph shows the cost of borrowing each month.

 

Considerations

Policy considerations

37      There are no policy considerations other than those already noted in this report.  

Legal considerations

38      There are no legal considerations arising from this report.  

Financial considerations

39      There are no financial considerations other than those already noted in this report. 

Tāngata whenua considerations

40      There are no tāngata whenua considerations arising from this report. 

Significance and Engagement

Significance policy

41      This matter has a low level of significance under Council’s Significance and Engagement Policy.  

Publicity

42      There are no publicity considerations arising from this report.  

 

Recommendations

43      That the Audit and Risk Subcommittee notes the Council’s compliance with its Treasury Management Policy for the six months ended 31 December 2019.

 

Appendices

Nil

 


Audit and Risk Sub-committee Meeting Agenda

20 February 2020

 

8.6         Ombudsman Investigation into Christchurch City Council LGOIMA Practices

Author:                    Tim Power, Senior Legal Counsel

Authoriser:              Mark de Haast, Group Manager

 

Purpose of Report

1          The purpose of this report is to update the Subcommittee on the Council’s compliance with its obligations under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA) following concerns raised by the Chief Ombudsman over compliance in the sector.

 

2          An internal self-review has been undertaken of Council’s LOGIMA practices.  The report does not identify any major areas of concern but does note some areas where the Council could improve its processes.

 

Delegation

3          The Audit and Risk Subcommittee has the appropriate delegation to consider this report and recommendations under the Governance Structure C1:

·          Reviewing and maintaining the internal control framework.

 

BackgrounD

4          The Chief Ombudsman has been monitoring agencies’ official information practices, resources and systems by undertaking targeted investigations and publishing reports of findings.  Several local authorities have been the subject of a targeted investigation.  Most recently an investigation into Christchurch City Council (CCC) identified a number of serious concerns about the Council’s leadership and culture, and its commitment to openness and transparency.  A number of recommendations were made in the Ombudsman’s report.  A copy of the Executive Summary of the Ombudsman’s report is attached as Appendix 1 to this report. 

 

5          A full copy of the report can be found by accessing the following link:

https://www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/resources/lgoima-compliance-and-practice-christchurch-city-council

 

Issues and Options

Issues

6          The Chief Ombudsman’s investigation of CCC looked at how the Council dealt with requests for official information, produced Land Information Memoranda (LIM) reports, and whether Council meetings complied with LGOIMA requirements.

 

7          The information gathered during the investigation was considered against a framework consisting of the following areas:

 

·           Leadership and culture

·           Organisation structure, staffing and capability

·           Internal policies, procedures and resources

·           Current practices

·           Performance monitoring and learning

 

Leadership and culture

8          CCC staff raised concerns about the methods used by the Executive Leadership Team (ELT) to keep negative information about the Council from Elected Members and/or the public.  The alleged methods included manipulating or removing information from reports, project reporting not occurring, and staff being told not to record information or to keep information in draft form. 

 

9          The investigation found the former CCC Chief Executive failed to take adequate and appropriate action to address staff concerns and to ensure the actions of the ELT reflected the LGOIMA’s principle of availability and the commitment to openness and transparency. 

 

10        The following recommendations were made:

·        All staff should be encouraged to identify process improvements and receive training in accordance with their position. 

·        Review the delegations’ framework to ensure decision making and accountability at the senior level are clear. 

·        Develop a proactive release policy to support the Council’s commitment to transparency. 

·        Establish a process to ensure any amendments made to documents/records are transparent. 

·        Establish a clear process for staff reporting and raising concerns without fear of reprisal, and ensure outcomes are clearly communicated back to staff. 

·        Regular consistent positive messaging by the CE and ELT about the importance of openness and transparency. 

·        Assign a senior manager with specific strategic responsibility and executive accountability for official information practice.

 

Organisation structure, staffing and capability

11        The report noted that it is essential that LGOIMA training is mandatory for all staff upon induction, with refresher training offered periodically to staff who handle information requests. 

 

12        The following recommendations were made:

·        Develop a LGOIMA training programme tailored to the needs of all staff. 

·        Develop and implement more detailed, regular training for delegated decision makers, including senior leaders and staff in the LGOIMA team. 

·        Ensure appropriate staff have access to, and understand how to use, the LGOIMA tracking spreadsheet to ensure feedback is available.

 

Internal policies, procedures and resources

13        While CCC had internal guidance material for staff, the report noted that it is important to ensure the guidance is consistent across the different platforms within Council.  While the policies existed, it was important to ensure they were adhered to, and senior leaders needed to champion the importance of those policies. 

 

14        The following recommendations were made:

·        Ensure guidance is reviewed regularly and updated. 

·        Leaders to champion sound record keeping practice. 

·        Prioritise the development of a proactive release policy. 

 

Current practices

15        The report noted that a number of requests received by the CCC customer services team were not recorded as LGOIMA requests.  CCC used a spreadsheet that recorded the relevant information associated with each request.  However, the spreadsheet did not include information in respect of the decision-making.   Also, Elected Members directed their requests to the CE’s Office where information was supplied on a “need to know” basis. Staff needed to be sure that information requests made by Elected Members were treated as LGOIMA requests.   

 

16        The investigation identified that an advisor to the Mayor was present while LGOIMA requests were being discussed.  CCC were encouraged to develop a protocol to clarify when and in what circumstances decision-makers would consult with Elected Members, including the Mayor and their staff.  Any consultation needed to be recorded. 

 

17        The following recommendations were made:

·        Ensure all public and media information requests are handed in accordance with LGOIMA.

·        Upgrade to a database (non-spreadsheet) to track requests and decisions. 

·        Record the reasoning behind LGOIMA decisions, including any consideration of the public interest and results of consultations with third parties. 

·        Establish a peer review process. 

·        Ensure records are kept of workshops and briefings. 

 

Performance monitoring and learning

18        CCC had internal processes which included the ELT receiving a weekly spreadsheet of all open LGOMIA requests and weekly meetings were held between various teams which include LGOIMA discussions.  The performance monitoring could be improved by providing analysis of data collected in the spreadsheet, as well as capturing additional data.  The report noted that media requests were not captured in the spreadsheet which resulted in an incomplete picture of CCC’s compliance with LGOIMA deadlines. 

 

19        The following recommendations were made:

·        Consider providing the ELT with a monthly report on LGOMIA. 

·        Consider ways to include requests handled by the communications and customer services team, as well as Elected Members and property file requests, in LGOIMA reporting. 

·        Develop a formal quality assurance process. 

 

20        The report also found that the Council generally complied with its LGOIMA obligations in terms of time frames for responding to LIM requests, and meeting administration requirements.

 

 

REVIEW OF KCDC’S LGOIMA PRACTICES

 

21        Officers have undertaken a self-review assessment of Council’s processes, taking into account the concerns raised and recommendations made in the CCC investigation. 

 

22        There are a number of aspects of the Council’s approach to LGOIMA that Council does well:

·        Responses are approved by Group Managers.

·        Sensitive and complex requests are all required to have Senior Legal Counsel oversight.

·        Good internal guidance is available to staff in the form of standard form templates (staff guide available).

·        Requests are tracked in a database and assigned to staff with an automated reminder function.

·        Proactive disclosure policy is planned (some responses have already been made publicly available).

 

23        The Audit and Risk Subcommittee receives regular reports on the status of new and current Ombudsman investigations.  The Council’s Legal Counsel has a good relationship with the Office of the Ombudsman and a significant number of inquiries from members of the public to the Office of the Ombudsman in relation to the Council are resolved before they are formally recorded as a “complaint”.  In recent years there have been very few complaints to the Office of the Ombudsman that have been upheld. 

 

24        Council’s processes for producing LIMs have been through a business improvement process leading to a much more robust process for the production of LIMs with accountabilities much clearer.

 

25        Council has recently implemented changes to the manner in which records of briefings and workshops are now captured.  A record of elected members attending is now taken and there is a recording of all workshops and briefings.

 

26        No issues have been identified in relation to the notification of meetings and the publication of agendas and issuing of minutes.  For those meetings that are held in public excluded grounds under LGOIMA are always identified.   There have been no successful challenges to grounds identified by the Council for excluding members of the public.  Council regularly release the recommendations from public excluded meetings once the meeting has concluded.

 

27        Council meetings are livestreamed and the Council is in the process of working through issues around the proposal to make video records of meetings available to members of the public on-line.

 

28        While there are no concerns in respect of the KCDC LGOIMA processes, the CCC report has highlighted some areas where processes could be improved, including:

·        Training for new staff at induction (and ongoing training for staff).

·        Ensuring reasons for decisions are recorded in the database.  This would require that any grounds used for withholding information are identified along with any public interest matters that are taken into account in reaching a decision on withholding or releasing information.

·        Ensuring that requests received through the communications and customer services teams are captured in the LGOIMA database.

·        Consideration should be given to whether there should be any record kept of matters discussed at public only discussions held immediately before Council meetings.  Currently no staff attend these sessions.

Considerations

Policy considerations

25      There are no policy considerations arising from the recommendations in this report.

Legal considerations

26      There are no additional legal considerations arising from this report.

Financial considerations

27        For the most part the recommendations in this report do not require any additional funding and can be funded from within existing budgets.  Any additional effort required is likely to be off-set by less staff time required to deal with LGOIMA responses that result in complaints to the Office of the Ombudsman.

Tāngata whenua considerations

28        There are no tāngata whenua considerations arising from this report.

Strategic considerations

29        This matter relates to Council’s focus outcome of improving accessibility of Council services. By improving its LGOIMA practices, Council makes it easier for the community to access information about Council and engage with Council activities. 

Significance and Engagement

Significance policy

30        This matter has a low level of significance under Council’s Significance and Engagement Policy.

Consultation already undertaken

31        There has been no consultation undertaken in relation to this report and its recommendations.

Engagement planning

32        An engagement plan is not needed to implement this report.

Publicity

33        No publicity is planned in relation to this report.

 

Recommendations

34        That the Audit and Risk Subcommittee:

(a)        Notes the CCC Ombudsman report;

(b)        Notes the areas highlighted for improvement set out in paragraph 28 to this report.

 

 

 

Appendices

1.       Office of the Ombudsman - LGOIMA Compliance and Practice at Christchurch City Council (Executive Summary only)  

 


Audit and Risk Sub-committee Meeting Agenda

20 February 2020

 

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Audit and Risk Sub-committee Meeting Agenda

20 February 2020

 

8.7         Risk Management - Business Assurance Update

Author:                    Jacinta Straker, Chief Financial Officer

Authoriser:              Mark de Haast, Group Manager

 

Purpose of Report

1        This report primarily updates the Audit and Risk Subcommittee on the on-going implementation of the Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) framework.

Delegation

2        The Audit and Risk Subcommittee has delegated authority to consider this report under the following delegation in the Governance Structure, Section C.1.

Ensuring that Council has in place a current and comprehensive risk management framework and making recommendations to the Council on risk mitigation.

Background

3        The key elements of the Enterprise Risk Management Framework include:

·        Risk Management;

·        Business Continuity Management;

·        Business Assurance; and

·        Procurement Improvement Programme.

 

4        The key work streams within this area are:

·        Regularly discuss risks with the Council’s business groups and Senior Leadership Team and embed the day-to-day management of risks in the more routine activities;

·        develop a risk communication/reporting process at and between, the following levels:

−       Council/Committees;

−       Senior Leadership Team (SLT);

−       Business Units/Groups; and

−       Projects, Asset Management.

·        develop a Business Continuity Management System for effective response to a range of potential business disruptions;

·        provide fraud awareness training;

·        provide business assurance oversight and complete business assurance work; and

·        improve the understanding and tools to support good procurement practices.

 

5        As previously reported, the intended outcomes from performing this programme well will include:

·        stakeholders, external auditors, Council and management achieve high levels of assurance that the real risks are being identified and managed effectively;

·        better decision making throughout the business through greater awareness of the real risks (threats and opportunities); and

·        clarification and socialisation of the Council’s risk appetite and tolerance.

 

Enterprise Risk Management Progress Update

 

6        Guidance for the risk management, procurement and assurance work has been established through a collaborative process with Council staff.

7        The work has focussed primarily on tangible outputs, as discussed separately below.

 

Corporate Risk Profile – Status Update

8        As part of Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) a risk profile, comprising a risk register and risk treatment plan, was established. This is subject to approximately quarterly updates by management and is then reported to the Subcommittee. The focus is on identifying, managing and communicating the very highest strategic and operational risks that the Council faces.

9        Engagement on the risk profile now routinely includes conversation with activity managers as well as Group Managers.  The overall risk management culture and practice is improving and risk conversations are widening.

10      We are currently considering implementation of a new risk management software tool to enable wider and efficient awareness and management of all organisational risks by Council staff.

11      The concept of risk acceptance is being further embedded, i.e. certain moderate level risks may be overtly tolerated by the business in the context of the costs or impracticalities to further mitigate the risk. 

12      The risk profile was reviewed and updated by the Group Managers and the relevant activity managers of each group during the quarter. The Corporate Risk Register is attached as Appendix 1 to this report.

13      The intention is for the Subcommittee to first familiarise themselves with the Corporate Risk Register and thereafter, to nominate any risk/s for “deep dive” discussions at future Subcommittee meetings. Risk “deep dives” provide an opportunity for Subcommittee members to engage and gain a deeper insight on a specific risk/s.

 

Corporate Business Continuity Management System (BCMS) – Status Update

14      Business Disruptions are currently assessed as a “moderate” level risk (with a target risk level of “Low”), on the Corporate Risk Register, attached as Appendix 1 to this report.  

15      To address this risk, Council is refreshing and widening a BCMS development programme.  The objective of the programme is to ensure that, following a disruptive incident, Council has the systems and capability to continue the delivery of its critical activities and services within acceptable, predefined levels.

16      This programme builds on some work carried out in early 2017 to refresh Business Continuity Plans (BCPs) for critical corporate activities:

·        payroll (HR and Finance);

·        loss of office buildings;

·        supplier payments; and

·        customer call centre.

 

17      The development programme is being staged over the 2018/19 and 2019/20 years.

18      The development programme is iterative and includes:

·        establishment of BCMS policy and guidance material (largely complete);

·        Business Impact Analysis to identify all critical activities (complete);

·        development of BCPs for identified critical activities (largely complete);

·        review and refresh existing BCPs where necessary (in progress);

·        identification of critical dependencies and resource needs including ICT (in progress);

·        leadership requirements during an event (complete); and

·        Regular BCP testing and refresh/development programme (not started).

 

BCPs have recently been developed for:

·        Drinking Water Supply.

·        Laboratory Water Testing.

·        Wastewater Services.

·        Electoral Services.

 

19      Business continuity has recently been strengthened with the formation of a Continuity Leadership Team (CLT) comprising the GM Corporate Services and the Business Improvement Manager.  The CLT provides guidance and support for further BCMS development, exercises and real responses.

 

Procurement Improvement Programme – Status Update

20      A comprehensive procurement manual and set of templates was updated in 2018/19 and rolled out across the Council using a series of workshop training sessions. A refresh of key council procurement contract templates was reviewed and refreshed over the past six months.  Staff are better supported with the procurement aspects of their jobs and are developing improved procurement capability.

 

21      The procurement specialist has been contracted until the end of May 2020, to build up the level of capability across the organisation. Focused training on procurement will be provided to new senior staff during February to ensure good practice continues through the effective use of the procurement policy and manuals.

 

Business Assurance – Status Update

22      The Council has contracted PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to complete a PAYE tax compliance review during the third quarter.  PwC will use a payroll and analytics tool to review key data and ensure the accuracy of payroll data and calculations.

23      A report back will be provided to the Subcommittee at its next meeting following completion of the review.

Considerations

Policy considerations

24      There are no further policy implications arising from this report.

Legal considerations

25      There are no further legal considerations arising from this report.

Financial considerations

26      The cost of the independent consultants (procurement improvement programme and the Business Assurance review) will be funded from within the 2019/20 annual plan budget.

Tāngata whenua considerations

27      There has been no engagement with tāngata whenua regarding this report.

Strategic considerations

28      This enterprise risk management framework contributes to ensuring that the Council is continuing to improve its financial position against financial constraints.

Significance and Engagement

29      This matter has a low level of significance under the Council Policy.

 

Recommendations

30      That the Audit and Risk Committee notes the progress on the Council’s Enterprise Risk Management Framework.

 

 

Appendices

1.       Corporate-wide Risk Register 2019/2020  

 


Audit and Risk Sub-committee Meeting Agenda

20 February 2020

 

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Audit and Risk Sub-committee Meeting Agenda

20 February 2020

 

8.8         Health and Safety Quarterly Reports: 1 July 2019 - 30 September 2019; and 1 October 2019 - 31 December 2019

Author:                    Dianne Andrew, Organisational Development Manager

Authoriser:              Wayne Maxwell, Chief Executive

 

Purpose of Report

1        This report presents Health and Safety reports for the periods 1 July 2019 – 30 September 2019 and 1 October 2019 - 31 December 2019.

Delegation

2        The Audit and Risk Sub Committee has delegated authority to consider this report under the following delegation in the Governance Structure, Section C.1:

·        Ensuring that the Council has in place a current and comprehensive risk management framework and making recommendations to the Council on risk mitigation;

·        Assisting elected members in the discharge of their responsibilities by ensuring compliance procedures are in place for all statutory requirements relating to their role;

·        Governance role in regards to the Health and Safety Leadership Charter and Health and Safety Plan.

Background

3        The quarterly Health & Safety Performance Report is intended to provide the Council with insight into initiatives and activities, and their progress, as part of our organisations commitment to providing a safe and healthy place to work. The contents and any subsequent discussions arising from this report can support Council officers to meet their due diligence obligations under the Health & Safety at Work Act (HSWA) 2015.

4        Between July and September 2017 the Simpson Grierson Health and Safety team were engaged to review how the Council was progressing with changes and planned initiatives following the introduction of the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA) 2015. The findings were presented back to the Audit and Risk Committee in November 2017. This review identified areas for improvement, in particular where we can improve some current processes to further strengthen our ability to more effectively monitor and verify.

5        A draft Health and Safety Plan 2018 – 2020 was provided to the Committee at the meeting 13 September 2018 and has since been adopted by the Senior Leadership Team.

6        Progress on the 2018 – 2020 Health and Safety Plan has been incorporated into quarterly reports going forward.

7        Two reports are presented at this time due to the scheduled timing of the previous triennium last Audit and Risk Committee Meeting and the first Audit and Risk Subcommittee meeting for the new triennium.

Issues and Options

Issues

8        Progress on the Health and Safety 2018-2020 Plan initiatives is progressing however ‘business as usual’ activities do have the potential to absorb resources and as such, some time lines may be extended and this will be updated through the reporting cycle.

Considerations

Policy considerations

9        There are no Policy considerations.

Legal considerations

10      There are no legal considerations.

Financial considerations

11      Budget has been provided for implementation of the action plan initiatives as part of the 2018-38 Long Term Plan.

Tāngata whenua considerations

12      There are no Tāngata whenua considerations.

Significance and Engagement

Significance policy

13      This report does not trigger the Council’s Significance and Engagement Policy.

Publicity

14      There are no publicity considerations. 

 

Recommendations

15      That the Audit and Risk Sub Committee notes the two Health and Safety Quarterly Reports for the periods: 1 July 2019 – 30 September 2019; and 1 October 2019 – 31 December 2019 attached as Appendix One and Appendix Two to this Report.

16      That the Audit and Risk Sub Committee note the Health and Safety Leadership Charter which is attached for members’ future reference as Appendix Three to this Report.

 

 

Appendices

1.       Health and Safety Quarterly Report 1 July 2019 - 30 September 2019

2.       Health and Safety Quarterly Report 1 October 2019 - 31 December 2019

3.       Health and Safety Leadership Charter  

 


Audit and Risk Sub-committee Meeting Agenda

20 February 2020

 

·       Following the recommendations from the SimpsonGrierson review we continue to progress the work program. The Health and Safety Plan 2018 – 2020 was presented to this committee at the September 2018 meeting. The plan is split into three high level areas: Leadership; Health and Safety Management Systems, and Contractor Management. Underlying these there is a particular focus on:

skill and capability of our people

managing our critical risks, and

leadership and engagement

 

LEAD INDICATORS          

 

1.       Corporate HEALTH AND SAFETY Training COMPLETED  ( ) indicates no. of attendees

 

Task Related:

 

·     ConstructSafe Foundation                                                       (19)

·     Confined Space Entry and Gas Detection                                 (1)

·     Kerbside Collection Traffic Leader                                            (4)

·     Traffic Management – Level 1                                                  (1)

·     Slings and Loads                                                                    (6)

·     Height Safety - Introduction                                                      (1)

 

ROLE Related:

 

·     First Aid - Comprehensive including 2 yearly refresh                           (10).

·     HeartBeat CPR and AED                                                                  (21)

·     Fire Warden                                                                                     (16)

·     Vault software upgrade                                                                     (10)

 

critical risk Related:

 

·    Asbestos Awareness                                                                (1)

 

health and safety Related:

 

·     Health & Safety Representative Stage 1                                   (1)

·     Health & Safety Representative Stage 2                                   (1)

 

2.       Emergency evacuationS ANd Drills

 

·    Six-monthly emergency evacuation drills – 9 due, 9 completed

 

3.       Employee Health and Safety Inductions

·     12 inductions were completed this quarter.

 

4.      WELLNESS INITIATIVES                                              ( )indicates no. of attendees

 

·     Eye Examinations                                                                  (11)

·     Ergonomic Work Assessments                                                 (7)

·     EAP Services hours utilized                                                    (31)

 

5.     Drug and Alcohol management                               ( ) indicates no. of attendees

 

·     Drug and Alcohol Tests pre-employment continue to be undertaken by all preferred applicants.

·     Reasonable cause testing continues to be undertaken as a mandatory requirement where any incident involves the use of machinery or vehicles.                                                                                                                                

6.     STandard Operating Procedure (SOP) Review 

·     SOPs continue to be periodically reviewed and updated

 

7.    contractor management

·     As at 1 July a total of 213 Contractors were listed as ‘approved’ on the Contractor Register.

·     Fourteen contractors were either newly added or had their approval renewed this quarter.

·     No breaches of health and safety required formal intervention or corrective actions this quarter.

·     Significant work continues in the area of contractor management in conjunction with the recommendations from the SimpsonGrierson health and safety review.

 

8.     risk management

 

·     As part of the 2018-2020 work program, three organizational critical risk areas have been identified as current: Asbestos Management, Hazardous Substance Management, and Driving. Work has progressed in each of these areas.

 

Some additional legislative requirements relating to storage of hazardous substances and hazardous waste came into effect last quarter. Our independent Compliance Certifier has issued a Compliance Certificate verifying compliance.

Partly as a consequence of the Waikanae Library Mould issue, Property Services began the process of building team capability and capacity to better manage property assets from a health and safety perspective, including identifying and managing hazards such as asbestos and mould.

 

·     Driving remains an ongoing critical risk for any PCBU who has vehicles and staff regularly on the road. We have revised our training plan to include a regular refresher/training cycle for all council staff who are required to regularly drive a council vehicle. Job specific training for specialist vehicles (pump trucks, bulldozers etc) is already in place. Not only is safety an issue, but also organizational reputational risk as all vehicles are clearly council logoed.

·     As at 30 September 2019 there were 39 Care Register entries, with three new additions this quarter.

·    Risk assessments and safety plans for Council Operations staff working at parks and reserves planned to commence in the previous quarter were deferred due to Operations resource unavailability. The project has not yet been rescheduled as resource is unlikely to become available in the short-term.

 

9.     Health and Safety Committee (HSC)

 

·     The corporate HSC has continued to meet monthly.

·     The Operations Working Group did not meet during the quarter due to the worker representative positions remaining unfilled. Further consideration of how best to achieve Operations worker participation and representation is in hand.

·     One recently elected HS Representative successfully completed Level 1 training, and one other progressed to Level 2 in the quarter.

·     The Civic Building Chief Fire Warden was formally recognised by the Chief Executive for proactively initiating improvements to the arrangements for evacuating the building in a fire emergency.

 

10.   Health and Safety Policy Review Progress

 

·       The Contractors’ Health and Safety Management Policy review was completed. No significant issues were found and a slightly updated version will be published soon.

·       The wider health and safety policy review work program continues to be a work in progress, with 12 key procedure documents drafted and pending review. This work stream is contained under the Health and Safety Management Systems section of the 2018-2020 plan. The schedule is beginning to slip behind, due to competing operational demands on the Health and Safety Risk Manager as previously reported.

·       The Health and Safety Toolkit on HubKap has been maintained under business-as-usual continuous improvement.

 

LAG INDICATORS

 

11. INCIDENTS, INJURIES AND Near missES 1 July – 30 sept 2019

 

·             

·            Incident/Injury / illness

·            Notifiable Incident / Injury or illness

·            Near Miss

·            Total

·            Corporate Services

·            1

·            0

·            0

·            1

·            Infrastructure Services

·            9

·            0

·            2

·            11

·            People and Partnerships

·            1

·            0

·            0

·            1

·            Place and Space

·            6

·            0

·            0

·            6

·            Regulatory Services

·            4

·            0

·            0

·            4

·            Chief Executive including Org Dev

·            2

·            0

·            1

·            3

·            Third Party

·            20

·            0

·            2

·            22

·            Contractor

·            1

·            0

·            0

·            1

·            Total

·             

·             

·             

·            49

 

There were no notifiable incidents this quarter.

 

·      Notifiable Incident: an unplanned or uncontrolled incident in relation to a workplace that exposes the health and safety of workers or others to a serious risk, arising from immediate or imminent exposure.

·      Notifiable Injury or illness: suffers a serious injury or illness as a result of work or workplace, for example requires immediate qualified medical assistance or admittance to hospital, or treatment from a registered medical practitioner within 48 hours of exposure to a substance.

·      All reported incidents were investigated and corrective actions identified and actioned where required.

·      Of 49 total incidents:

10 worker injuries: including falls on same level (3), non-powered tools & equipment (3), animal other than aggressive dog (1), biological factor (1), skin puncture (1), overexertion / body stressing (1)

16 worker non –injuries including 3 near miss (mobile plant, flying object, person’s behaviour), 5 vehicle events, 3rd party behaviour (3), indoor environment (2), hitting objects (1), fall on level (1), property damage (1)

1 contractor incident (sewer damage)

22 third party incidents

·    Third Party is defined as a person who does not hold employee status or contractor worker status

·    This quarter Third Party events continue to be predominantly Aquatics (9) and Libraries (11) i.e. Council’s public spaces.

·    Monitoring of third party events is continuous and dealt with directly by each site and escalated where risk is identified.

 

 

Due to the major organisational restructure in January 2019, data for quarterly comparison by Group is only available back to the beginning of the 2019 calendar year.


Audit and Risk Sub-committee Meeting Agenda

20 February 2020

 

·       Following the recommendations from the SimpsonGrierson review we continue to progress the work program. The Health and Safety Plan 2018 – 2020 was presented to the Audit and Risk Committee at the September 2018 meeting. The plan is split into three high level areas: Leadership; Health and Safety Management Systems, and Contractor Management. Underlying these there is a particular focus on:

skill and capability of our people

managing our critical risks, and

leadership and engagement

·       This Report covers the beginning of a new triennium. Health and safety governance training is scheduled for February 2020 for elected members who have Officer due diligence duties.

 

LEAD INDICATORS          

 

1.       Corporate HEALTH AND SAFETY Training COMPLETED  ( ) indicates no. of attendees

 

Task Related:

 

·     Confined Space Entry and Gas Detection                                 (1)

·     Traffic Management – Level 1                                                  (12)

·     Truck Loader Crane                                                                (6)

·     Growsafe Basic                                                                       (3)

 

ROLE Related:

 

·     First Aid - Comprehensive including 2 yearly refresh                           (28).

·     HeartBeat CPR and AED                                                                  (10)

·     Psychological First Aid for Emergency Responders                            (15)

·     Vault software upgrade                                                                     (10)

 

critical risk Related:

 

·    None this quarter

 

health and safety Related:

 

·     None this quarter                              

 

2.       Emergency evacuationS ANd Drills

 

·    Six-monthly emergency evacuation drills – 2 due, 2 completed.

 

3.       Employee Health and Safety Inductions

·     10 inductions were completed this quarter.

 

4.      WELLNESS INITIATIVES                                              ( )indicates no. of attendees

 

·     Eye Examinations                                                                  (15)

·     Ergonomic Work Assessments                                                (10)

·     EAP Services hours utilized                                                    (34)

 

5.     Drug and Alcohol management                              

 

·     Drug and Alcohol Tests pre-employment continue to be undertaken by all preferred applicants.

·     Reasonable cause testing continues to be undertaken as a mandatory requirement where any incident involves the use of machinery or vehicles.                                                                 

                                     

6.     STandard Operating Procedure (SOP) Review 

·     SOPs continue to be periodically reviewed and updated

 

7.    contractor management

·     As at 1 October a total of 216 Contractors were listed as ‘approved’ on the Contractor Register.

·     Three contractors were either newly added or had their approval renewed this quarter.

·     Two separate Infrastructure contractor events occurred this quarter involving diggers rupturing live natural gas pipes. The most serious resulted in Kapiti Road being temporarily closed, Fire and Emergency NZ being called to attend, and a notification to WorkSafe NZ. There was no fire or explosion, no-one was injured, and no enforcement action ensued. In both events the Contract Managers obtained a detailed investigation report from the contractor with an improvement plan for preventing a recurrence.

·     Significant work continues in the area of contractor management in conjunction with the recommendations from the SimpsonGrierson health and safety review.

 

8.     risk management

 

·     As part of the 2018-2020 work program, three organizational critical risk areas have been identified as current: Asbestos Management, Hazardous Substance Management, and Driving. Work has progressed in each of these areas.

 

Hazardous substances management is now Business-As-Usual. For example, there is an enduring expectation on line management to continue to pursue opportunities to reduce and where practicable eliminate the storage and handling of hazardous substances.

Property Services continued to build team capability and capacity to better manage property assets from a health and safety perspective, including identifying and managing hazards such as asbestos and mould.

 

·     Driving remains an ongoing critical risk for any PCBU who has vehicles and staff regularly on the road. We have revised our training plan to include a regular refresher/training cycle for all council staff who are required to regularly drive a council vehicle. Job specific training for specialist vehicles (pump trucks, bulldozers etc) is already in place and over time both training streams will be incorporated under a centralized program. Not only is safety an issue, but also organizational reputational risk as all vehicles are clearly council logoed.

·     As at 31 December 2019 there were 41 Care Register entries, with two new additions this quarter.

·    Risk assessments and safety plans for Council Operations staff working at parks and reserves planned to commence in the Apr - Jun quarter were deferred due to Operations resource unavailability. The project will be rescheduled.

 

9.     Health and Safety Committee (HSC)

 

·     The corporate HSC has continued to meet monthly.

·     The Operations Working Group did not meet during the quarter due to the worker representative positions remaining unfilled. Further consideration of how best to achieve Operations worker participation and representation is in hand.

·     The HSC did not meet with SLT this quarter. A stronger relationship was one of the initiatives contained in the Leadership section of the 2018-2020 plan and given full support by SLT. Once vacancies on the HSC have been filled the meeting rotations will be reviewed.

·     An extraordinary Committee meeting was held in November to discuss options to best achieve organisation-wide worker representation in future. Improvement opportunities were identified and taken forward for further consideration.

 

10.   Health and Safety Policy Review Progress

 

·       The current Health and Safety at Work Act came into force on 4 April 2016, triggering ACC to review and ultimately withdraw its 20-year-old Workplace Safety Management Practices (WSMP) Discount Program. The scheme was already subject to challenge by academics for the lack of empirical evidence of actually delivering improving performance, but it did offer significant discounts on ACC insurance premiums which enabled further investment in health and safety initiatives and related training. Most reputable medium and large employers, including Council, used the criteria as the basis for its formally documented health and safety management system. By the time the scheme was withdrawn two years ago Council had successfully attained the top, tertiary level. A new one-page health and safety policy statement was signed by the Chief Executive and published in mid-2019, and the formal top tier management system policy document is currently being redrafted. Compared to the pre-existing document it will be significantly more strategic, and consistent with both international standards and WorkSafe’s SafePlus model of what good organisational health and safety management looks like and will have an emphasis on engagement and leadership. The Chief Executive and SLT are committed to building, strengthening and maintaining a workforce which is underpinned by effective healthly and safe behaviour in our workplace.

·       The wider health and safety policy review work program continues to be a work in progress, with 12 key procedure documents drafted and pending review. This work stream is contained under the Health and Safety Management Systems section of the 2018-2020 plan. The schedule is beginning to slip behind, due to competing operational demands on the services of the Health and Safety Risk Manager as previously reported.

·       The Health and Safety Toolkit on HubKap has been maintained under business-as-usual continuous improvement.

 

LAG INDICATORS

 

11. INCIDENTS, INJURIES AND Near misses 1 oct – 31 dec 2019

 

·             

·            Incident/Injury / illness

·            Notifiable Incident / Injury or illness

·            Near Miss

·            Total

·            Corporate Services

·            1

·            0

·            0

·            1

·            Infrastructure Services

·            12

·            0

·            4

·            16

·            People and Partnerships

·            1

·            0

·            0

·            1

·            Place and Space

·            2

·            0

·            2

·            4

·            Regulatory Services

·            5

·            0

·            0

·            5

·            Chief Executive including Org Dev

·            0

·            0

·            0

·            0

·            Third Party

·            22

·            0

·            5

·            27

·            Contractor

·            2

·            1

·            0

·            3

·            Total

·             

·             

·             

·            57

 

The Notifiable Event occurred when a contractor ruptured an in-ground natural gas pipe resulting in closure of Kapiti Road and an emergency services callout.

 

·      Notifiable Incident: an unplanned or uncontrolled incident in relation to a workplace that exposes the health and safety of workers or others to a serious risk, arising from immediate or imminent exposure.

·      Notifiable Injury or illness: suffers a serious injury or illness as a result of work or workplace, for example requires immediate qualified medical assistance or admittance to hospital, or treatment from a registered medical practitioner within 48 hours of exposure to a substance.

·      All reported incidents were investigated and corrective actions identified and actioned where required.

·      Of 57 total incidents:

8 worker injuries: including falls on same level (4), over-exertion / bodily stressing (3), skin puncture (1).

19 worker non –injuries including 6 near miss (1 unexpected in-ground power cable, 4 vehicle related,1 shelf collapse), vehicle events (7), 3rd party behaviour (3), insecure site (1), dog related (1), body stressing (1)

3 contractor incident (natural gas pipe damage (2), work at height (1)

27 third party incidents

·    Third Party is defined as a person who does not hold employee status or contractor worker status

·    This quarter Third Party events continue to be predominantly Aquatics (22) and Libraries (5) i.e. Council’s public spaces.

·    Monitoring of third party events is continuous and dealt with directly by each site and escalated where risk is identified.

 

 

Due to the major organisational restructure in January 2019, data for quarterly comparison by Group is only available back to the beginning of the 2019 calendar year.


Audit and Risk Sub-committee Meeting Agenda

20 February 2020

 

Appendix Three

 

KAPITI COAST DISTRICT COUNCIL

HEALTH AND SAFETY LEADERSHIP CHARTER

 

1.         Vision Statement

Kāpiti Coast District Council will work to achieve a vibrant, diverse and thriving community by being open for business and delivering our services in a caring, dynamic and effective manner. This will be underpinned by an organisational culture that supports and encourages a healthy and safe working environment achieved through effective and inspired senior leadership, influence and shared learning.

 

2.         Health and Safety Leadership Charter

Under the Health and Safety at Work Act, Elected Members and the Chief Executive are the Officers of our organisation. As Officers, Elected Members subscribe to the principle that nothing is more important than the health and safety of its workers, and those that could be affected by the work being undertaken by, or on behalf of, the Kāpiti Coast District Council.

 

Elected Members, as Officers of the Kāpiti Coast District Council, acknowledge their responsibility to exercise due diligence, taking reasonable steps to understand the Council’s operations and health and safety risks, and to use this knowledge to influence health and safety outcomes by ensuring  those risks are managed effectively though an effective health and safety framework. 

 

This Leadership Charter is the key to enabling the effective implementation of the Health and Safety Plan for Kāpiti Coast District Council. All Officers (Chief Executive and Elected Members) commit to fulfilling their due diligence requirements to support the continuous improvement of health and safety functionality in our workplace. This commitment is founded on the principle that the effective management of health and safety is essential to the operation of a successful and thriving organisation.

 

Specifically, Kāpiti Coast District Council Elected Members in their capacity as Officers commit support to the following and take personal responsibility:

·    To ensure as Officers they remain current in their knowledge of health and safety matters;

·    To ensure the Council has and uses, appropriate resources and processes to identify then eliminate or minimise health and safety risk;

·    To strive for continuous health and safety improvement and to provide leadership and support to the Chief Executive to achieve this;

·    To ensure Council is an environment  that engages with workers on matters which will or are likely to affect their health or safety;

·    To have worker participation practices that provide workers with reasonable opportunities to participate effectively in improving health and safety;

·    To take the opportunity to verify processes that are put in place; and

·    To extend health and safety efforts, wherever relevant, beyond the workplace recognising and supporting related initiatives within the community.

 

 

 


Audit and Risk Sub-committee Meeting Agenda

20 February 2020

 

9          Confirmation of Public Excluded Minutes

Nil


Audit and Risk Sub-committee Meeting Agenda

20 February 2020

 

10        Public Excluded Reports  

Resolution to Exclude the Public

PUBLIC EXCLUDED ReSOLUtion

That, pursuant to Section 48 of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987, the public now be excluded from the meeting for the reasons given below, while the following matters are considered.

The general subject matter of each matter to be considered while the public is excluded, the reason for passing this resolution in relation to each matter, and the specific grounds under section 48(1) of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 for the passing of this resolution are as follows:

General subject of each matter to be considered

Reason for passing this resolution in relation to each matter

Ground(s) under section 48 for the passing of this resolution

10.1 - Update on Ombudsman and Privacy Commissioner Investigations and Litigation Status Report

Section 7(2)(a) - the withholding of the information is necessary to protect the privacy of natural persons, including that of deceased natural persons

Section 7(2)(b)(ii) - the withholding of the information is necessary to protect information where the making available of the information would be likely unreasonably to prejudice the commercial position of the person who supplied or who is the subject of the information

Section 7(2)(g) - the withholding of the information is necessary to maintain legal professional privilege

Section 7(2)(h) - the withholding of the information is necessary to enable Council to carry out, without prejudice or disadvantage, commercial activities

Section 48(1)(a)(i) - the public conduct of the relevant part of the proceedings of the meeting would be likely to result in the disclosure of information for which good reason for withholding would exist under section 6 or section 7