East Devon District Council faces larger to-do list after requesting greater scrutiny

More action is needed to improve processes at East Devon District Council after its new leadership team asked for greater scrutiny .

Fresh numbers show the council has agreed to take 77 actions to improve how its departments perform various functions as part of its 2023/24 internal audit.
This is up from 52 last year, according to an organisation called SWAP Internal Audit Services, which has given the council a ‘reasonable’ assurance rating overall – the second highest level out of four.
Nineteen areas or processes were assessed by the company, with two given the highest ‘substantial’ assurance rating compared to none last time.
But the number of areas with ‘limited’ assurance – the third of the four rungs – rose from two to seven.
“Senior management requested many of these audits to obtain an independent view on the council’s current arrangements and guidance on the improvements needed,” SWAP said.
“While we have reported concerns that the council needs to address, we have not identified any significant corporate risks this year.”
East Devon appointed its new chief executive Tracy Hendren in May. She  had been one of the three interim co-CEOs following the departure of Mark Williams last October, and she was also the director of housing, health and environment.
The request for a deeper internal audit suggests Ms Hendren wants to fully understand how the council functions and where improvements are needed.
SWAP said that out of the 37 actions it had agreed with East Devon’s senior leaders in its four follow-up audits, 26 had been implemented.
Lisa Fryer, assistant director at SWAP, said one area to which it had given a ‘limited’ assurance rating was linked to recruitment and how that process was managed.
“There was a lack of clarity in terms of what budget holders are responsible for in terms of controlling staff resources, and we also identified a lack of evidence of HR and finance being routinely involved in the recruitment process,” she said.
Ms Fryer said that East Devon’s staff now had access to its system, meaning that they could enter updates themselves in terms of progress on individual actions.
For instance, she noted that seven of eight agreed actions about emergency planning had been implemented, which she described as “very good progress in a short space of time”.
Elsewhere SWAP identified 35 actions as ‘overdue’, some of which had an initial estimated completion date of 2022.
Councillor Mike Goodman (Conservative, Sidmouth, Sidford) said this number was a potential worry. “I would expect some, but that figure seems high,” he said.
Cllr Goodman asked Ms Fryer if this figure was out of kilter with peers, but Ms Fryer noted that the council was now working in a different way and was being more proactive in terms of monitoring how its different departments perform.
Simon Davey, head of finance, said the way the council assesse its working practices and strategies was “new to us”.
“Previously, we would have issued an audit report and would have relied on the services to keep track of the areas that needed improvement, but now the executive leadership team is monitoring the numbers of actions and issues,” he said.
“So previously some of this would have been lost within the services, but now we are presenting it clearly, and we will work through the issues and get on top of them.”