Agenda and minutes

Apologies had been received from Mr Robert McCulloch-Graham, Mrs Gillian Woolman and Mr Graeme Samson.

The Chair confirmed the meeting was quorate.

The Chair welcomed a range of attendees to the meeting.

The Chair sought any verbal declarations of interest pertaining to items on the agenda.

The SCOTTISH BORDERS HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE INTEGRATION JOINT BOARD AUDIT COMMITTEE noted there were none.

Monday 19 March 2018

The SCOTTISH BORDERS HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE INTEGRATION JOINT BOARD AUDIT COMMITTEE minutes of 19 March 2018 were approved.

Action Tracker

4.1       Minute 7: Audit Scotland Forthcoming Audit: Mr John Raine sought an update on the publication of the report. Mr Asif Haseeb advised that the report was due for publication in November 2018.

The SCOTTISH BORDERS HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE INTEGRATION JOINT BOARD AUDIT COMMITTEE noted the action tracker.

Mrs Jill Stacey provided an overview of the content of the report and highlighted several elements including: audit work; risk register and zero new audit recommendations.

Mr John Raine enquired which particular concerns Mrs Stacey had in relation to governance arrangements.  Mrs Stacey advised that in the context of the organisation continuing to evolve her concerns were mainly around the distinction of the role of the Integration Joint Board (IJB) with partners and the IJB operating in that clearly defined role at a strategic level with partners delivering the operational services commissioned by the IJB.

Mr Raine enquired if the IJB was doing what it ought to be doing or if there were glaring deficiencies in how it was operating.  Mrs Stacey suggested it was a real challenge for the IJB to understand enough about the partnership organisations and how they operated and gathered assurance.  She suggested a key element of that was the Strategic Plan and commissioning and monitoring delivery of the strategic priorities.

Mr Raine noted that risk management was not yet fully embedded in the culture and suggested that itself was risk.  Mrs Stacey commented that Management colleagues had the responsibility for identifying the strategic risks within the partnership sphere.  She suggested the challenge for the IJB was to feel assured that there was clarity around strategic risks within the papers presented to it. The development of the strategic risk register for the IJB would assist with the flow of information into reports received by the IJB.

Mr Raine enquired if the IJB was too passive in terms of not testing out risk. Mr David Robertson suggested if the IJB looked at the difference in terms of delivery against outcomes, then it would continue to be a work in progress through the issuing of directions and ensuring both organisations were delivering against the strategic plan.  Mrs Stacey commented that there were a number of factors in the improvement action plan to come together and once they were joined it would provide the basis for the IJB acting in a more strategic way with regular scrutiny of how partners delivered against directions.

Mr Raine noted that the performance management framework was not fully developed and therefore could not be an effective mechanism to monitor service delivery.  Mrs Stacey commented that compared to the first year there had been a shift in the performance management framework which now covered a broader range of services and learning form other IJBs across Scotland would be useful going forward.

The Chair advised that at a recent meeting between COSLA and the Cabinet Secretary for Health & Sport, the Cabinet Secretary had advised that all the IJBs across Scotland were being reviewed and compared in order to provide best practice for IJBs to move forward.

The SCOTTISH BORDERS HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE INTEGRATION JOINT BOARD AUDIT COMMITTEE noted Internal Audit annual opinion on the overall adequacy and effectiveness of the IJB’s framework of governance, risk management and control set out within the Internal Audit  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

Mr David Robertson presented the Draft Accounts to the Audit Committee ahead of their submission to external audit to enable the Audit Committee to scrutinise the content. Mr Robertson highlighted the key issues on each page of the document.

Mr John Raine suggested an amendment to the definition of the Integration Joint Board function at the top of page 9.  Mr Robertson and the Committee accepted the amendment.

Mr Robertson then explained the content of the remuneration report.  Mr Raine suggested the report include the additional payments made by the Health Board to the Non-Executive members of the IJB, for the additional work they undertook out-with their working time for the Health Board.  

Mr Asif Haseeb confirmed that the payments were not listed within the Borders Health Board Annual Accounts and would be better reflected within the IJB Annual Accounts.

Cllr John Greenwell enquired about the status of the Statement of Account for Non Specific Taxation.  Mr Robertson advised that it was a heading within the accounts that had to be populated in regard to the funding provided to the partnership from NHS Borders and Scottish Borders Council to fund the activities of the IJB.  He advised that for 2017/18 the provision of resources had funded the IJB in full.

Mr Malcolm Dickson noted that the budget had been balanced for 2017/18, however he suspected that for 2018/19 given the risks identified it was unlikely the budget would balance by the financial year end.  Mr Robertson reminded the Committee that the partnership had had significant financial issues since its inception and in order to break even in 2017/18 the partnership had required additional contributions from both Scottish Borders Council and NHS Borders.  He commented that there was likely to be significant financial challenges faced by the IJB again in 2018/19.

The HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE INTEGRATION JOINT BOARD AUDIT COMMITTEE highlighted several typographical errors within the document and agreed to take forward the suggested proposal in regard to the remuneration report.

The HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE INTEGRATION JOINT BOARD AUDIT COMMITTEE noted the report and considered the unaudited Annual Accounts for 2017/18.

Mrs Jill Stacey presented the annual self assessment of compliance against the Local Code of Corporate Governance.  She advised of the updates to the self assessment to reflect the progress made over the previous 12 months and addressing the gaps in the previous version.

She further advised that it was best practice documentation for local authorities and that the previous version of the Local Code had been used as part of a Development session for the change in membership of the IJB the previous year.  She enquired if the Committee would find it useful to undertake a refresh session.

The SCOTTISH BORDERS HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE INTEGRATION JOINT BOARD AUDIT COMMITTEE agreed to recommend to the full Board that it approve the revised IJB Local Code of Corporate Governance for health and social care integration as detailed in Appendix 1 of the report and that it be utilised for a future IJB Development session; and

The SCOTTISH BORDERS HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE INTEGRATION JOINT BOARD AUDIT COMMITTEE agreed to the annual review of the IJB’s governance arrangements and reporting of the outcome of that review in an Annual Governance Statement scrutinised by the IJB Audit Committee in advance of IJB approval.

There was none.

Monday 17 September 2018 at 2.00pm in Committee Room 2, Scottish Borders Council

The Chair confirmed that the next meeting of the Scottish Borders Health and Social Care Integration Joint Board Audit Committee would be held on Monday 17 September 2018 at 2.00pm in Committee Room 2, Scottish Borders Council.