House of Commons - Public Accounts - Minutes of Evidence

Select Committee on Public Accounts Minutes of Evidence

APPENDIX 1

DISTRIBUTION OF LOTTERY FUNDS BY THE ENGLISH SPORTS COUNCIL (PAC 97-98/380)

Supplementary Memorandum submitted by the English Sports Council

1. This paper provides further details of the work undertaken by the English Sports Council in anticipation of, and in response to, the National Audit Office's review of the Lottery Sports Fund.

2. The Council recognised from the stage of the initial draft Report that there would be recommendations that the Council would need address. It therefore started work on those areas as soon as possible and, in several cases, before the publication of the final Report. The Council has continued to recognise the requirements of the Report when introducing further changes within its administration of the Lottery Sports Fund.

3. The information provided below is supported by a wide range of internal documentation including staffing structure charts and job profiles, IT specifications, training course syllabi, financial instructions, monitoring reports and public documents such as the revised application form.

INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS

4. The Council has been kept informed during the progress of the study. All members of the Council and the Lottery Awards Panel were provided with a copy of the Report and its contents discussed.

5. The Audit Committee of the Council have been provided with regular progress reports and a copy of the final Report. There have been six meetings of the Audit Committee between July 1997 and July 1998 at which relevant issues and the final Report were discussed and action taken reported.

6. Recommendations regarding staffing and organisational change were debated as part normal Strategic Management discussions.

7. The report noted that the Council were to increase their advisory staff at regional level and recommended that the Council should evaluate whether this effort was effective in improving the standard of applications.

8. These posts were approved in autumn 1997.

9. The process of recruiting these staff began in November 1997 and an additional member of staff has now been appointed to each region.

10. The performance of these additional regional staff is monitored in three ways:

10.1 As part of the normal compliance and monitoring procedures which operate on the quality of all applications.

10.2 As part of continuous reviews on case load which are undertaken.

10.3 As part of a specific formal review on the quality and submissions of applications due to take place later in the year. An informal review has demonstrated a significant increase in the quality of applications received in recent months.

11. The grade of the case officers has been raised in order properly to realise the requirements of their posts. This regrading was agreed and effected in January 1998.

12. As part of a general restructuring of the Council, it was agreed in January 1998 that additional administrative support would be provided to the lottery co-ordinating officers in the regions. The proposals are out to consultation and will be implemented from September 1998.

13. As part of this restructuring exercise a new senior staff structure has also been proposed for the LSF. This was formally agreed by Senior Management in March 1998 and will be implemented from September 1998.

14. A compliance team was put into place during the first half of 1998. The first appointment to this team was made in November 1997.

FINANCIAL SYSTEMS

15. Significant steps have been taken in support of the recommendation to improve and strengthen the financial analysis element of the assessment process. These are as follows:

15.1 A detailed system of evidencing case officer/senior case approval of schemes was introduced in the first quarter of 1998.

15.2 Additional fraud awareness training was undertaken in July and August of 1997 and has been incorporated into the induction programme of all new staff.

15.3 Additional financial awareness training was undertaken in December 1997 and January 1998 and has been incorporated into the induction programme of all new staff.

15.4 The compliance team put in place from November 1997 provides an additional check on the financial propriety, cost implications and payments for all schemes.

PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

16. The Council is currently involved in a detailed internal exercise in formulating a range of additional performance indicators to monitor performance within the LSF. Additionally, discussions are taking place with DCMS about their requirements for further detailed information on the performance of the Council.

17. The new computer system (GMS5) came on-line on 29 April[10] after extensive testing over several months. This system will facilitate the production of performance measures particularly in respect of assessment time for projects and appeals.

TARGET SETTING BY APPLICANTS

18. The issue of the measurable objectives and targets was raised in the Report. The Report records that a new application form, introduced in October 1997, makes it easier for applicants to identify aims, objectives and targets and for the LSF to monitor these.

19. The Council has now confirmed its attitude to project underspends and all staff are aware of this. While requests for the retention of any underspend is reviewed on a case by case basis there is a clear presumption that the underspend will be retained by, or repaid, to the Council.

20. The Council has reviewed its practices on monitoring. Monitoring covers all schemes and takes the following forms:

20.1 Small schemes—all schemes are monitored via telephone survey and/or visits.

20.2 Medium sized schemes—25 per cent of schemes are monitored via telephone survey; 75 per cent are visited.

20.3 Large schemes—all are visited. In addition, project monitors have been appointed to monitor the progress of national and regional level projects through their construction period.

21. A sample of schemes are also reviewed each year by the Management Audit Unit and/or contracted auditors. They also have a role with problem schemes.

22. Since the publication of the report the Council has completed on-site monitoring of a further 300 schemes. The analysis of this work will be presented to the Council through the Lottery Panel and the Audit Committee in autumn 1998. These monitoring reports complement the regular reports received during the course of construction of the projects.

IMPLEMENTING THE RECOMMENDATIONS

23. The progress of implementing the recommendations in this Report is being monitored on a regular basis by the Council's Audit Committee and, through it, by the Council and its Lottery Panel. The same process will apply to recommendations from the Committee of Public Accounts.

Chief Executive

English Sports Council

7 August 1998

10 Note by Witness: The date is actually the 26 May 1998 not 29 April. Back

© Parliamentary copyright 1998
Prepared 5 October 1998