'Hotdesking' And 'Virtual' Locations Used In North Wales Councils Expenses Claims.
Another article written by Gwynedd and Anglesey Local Democracy Reporter, Gareth Wyn-Williams has certainly raised eyebrows in North Wales. From the excellent article which can be found here - https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/eyebrows-raised-what-schools-agency-18716183 Copy and paste the web address into your browser. Auditors say they can't rule out that a school improvement service allowed its staff to change which offices they worked from so they could boost their mileage expenses claims. GwE changed its policies at the same time that rules were tightened up for council workers. The new rules meant staff would only be able to claim for distances beyond that which they would normally travel to get from home to work. When the changes came in, GwE allowed staff to choose that the office nearest to their homes should be their official workplace. That meant that the point at which they could begin claiming mileage expenses was lowered. While the council's decision to change the rules was aimed at saving around £290,000 a year, GwE - which is funded by North Wales authorities - saw its expenditure increase between 2017 and 2019. The audit report states: "A number of staff had wished to change their official work location to the nearest offices to their homes. "The fact that this may have happened in response to the change in policy and the effect this has on officers' travel costs, rather than for practical reasons for GwE, cannot be ruled out. "This is based on the fact that officers’ travel claims suggest that there has been no change to their day to day working arrangements, but the changes have obviously impacted on officers' travel costs by reducing the element they have to subtract from their claims, as well as enabling officers to claim for travel beyond their new, official location." An audit also found that mileage claims were not being checked properly, leading to one instance where an 800 mile claim submitted for an 80 mile journey was processed before the mistake was found. Noting that the nature of their work meant that GwE staff had to regularly visit schools or to the various offices across North Wales, it added: "Among the discussions to change official work locations, it was discovered that GwE had tried to move some staff to ‘virtual’ locations, as they did not have offices in the locations staff wanted to move to. "Nearby hotdesking facilities were eventually used as an official place of work as a physical location is required for the system. "Again this has the effect of enabling the officer to claim travel expenses (and time, if relevant to the terms of the job) for any journey that exceeds the distance from home to this official place of work." The report concluded: "Whilst reviewing officers' travel claims, it appears that those who have changed their official work location have benefited financially, whether by claiming for the journeys they make to their usual place of work, or by reducing the loss associated with the distance from home to their official work location - or a combination of both. "GwE's Value for Money Policy states that 'although internal audit has a primary responsibility for assessing the internal control system, the internal auditors are frequently well placed to assess and comment on VFM in the areas reviewed'. "To this end, Internal Audit cannot provide assurance that value for money has been taken into account when changing work locations." Responding to the report during Thursday's committee meeting, Cllr Paul Rowlinson suggested: "To me the main failing is the revelation that staff are allowed to choose their official place of work and that some may do that, not to fairly reflect where they truly work but to boost the amount they are permitted to claim back. "Are they paying income tax on that? And if this is happening on a wide basis then it raises concerns over the culture and reminds me of the issue surrounding Parliamentary expenses in 2009, which may have been within the law but didn't look right to people looking in from the outside." A council officer also conceded that it could be seen as "odd" that GwE amended many staff's official workplaces on the same day that Gwynedd's stricter guidelines were introduced, adding that the authority's HR department had attempted to challenge GwE on the decision. In response, a GwE spokesperson said: "In reviewing the policy change regarding travel costs GwE worked closely with the relevant officers at Gwynedd council and the Directors of Education of the six Authorities across North Wales to secure agreement that the regional service remained effective and efficient and embed the policy change in a regional context. "Following the policy change GwE staff are not claiming travel costs from their homes." A Cyngor Gwynedd spokesperson added that while concern had been raised that some managers at GwE were not, at the time of the audit, consistently checking the reasonableness and accuracy of mileage claims by GwE staff, management had since agreed to implement these steps. https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/eyebrows-raised-what-schools-agency-18716183 Article ends. As Gwynedd Council is the leading council in respect of the finance and accountancy service for the Joint Committee, it is Gwynedd Council’s responsibility to complete the financial statements. Gwynedd Council has been appointed as host authority in implementing and maintaining the service, and the Joint Committee of all the partners oversees the management of the service. The accounts for the GwE Joint Committee from 2013/14 to the present date can be found here - https://www.gwynedd.llyw.cymru/en/Council/Performance-and-spending/Budgets-and-finance/Statement-of-Accounts/GwE-Joint-Committee.aspx Is this fraud ? The Audit and Governance Committee webcast in relation to GwE and other matters can be found here along with the agenda packs that include the reports - https://gwynedd.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/502648 The sidenote alongside the webcast that informs 'An agenda has not been published for this meeting.' is not correct. For those interested the agenda pack and relevant reports can be found here - https://democracy.gwynedd.llyw.cymru/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=136&MId=4129&Ver=4
