Meeting documents

To receive verbal updates on Transport Governance overspend as identified in the Transport Governance report 21/22 -  requested by the Chair.

Alastair Woodland, Assistant Director SWAP Internal Auditing Services referred members back to the July ’22 SWAP Internal audit update report which identified limited assurance regarding transport budgets and overspends. He introduced Phil Curd, the Strategic Manager Access and ALN (Children’s’) and John Perrott, the Service Manager Transporting Somerset and explained that an officer from Finance had not been available to attend.  

The Strategic Manager Access and ALN (Children’s’) updated members on the School Travel Cost Strategy and explained that there is a group of officers working on 4 specific activity areas

1)    Internal fleet – reduce costs

2)    Additional budget – to ensure budget requirements are set

3)    Further cost avoidance – identify and exploit policy to reduce costs

4)    Improved co ordination

Members asked for sight of the School Travel Cost Strategy and the officer confirmed that he could share this with the committee, although it is not currently a public document so asked that it be treated as confidential by members.

The Service Manager Transporting Somerset gave a verbal update on how the team are addressing the other areas of limited assurance highlighted within the July ’22 internal update report.   

Following a short discussion between members and the officers, the Chair thanked the officers for their diligent work on resolving the issues identified by the audit, and for bringing these helpful verbal updates to the Audit committee.