Several past and present grandees of the Audit Commission will be giving evidence to this committee today, October 30th.
I expect that if the NFI is mentioned, the same dodgy statistics and misleading statements will be produced, ie figures including 'single person discounts' incorrectly believed by the Audit Commission to have been wrongly 'claimed or awarded' included in NFI success figures to inflate them, and the usual assertion that the NFI matches data to identify inconsistencies.
But whether the committee will pick up on this I cannot tell.
In any case, I see no reason to believe that any of the people responding here will know anything about council tax discount law, electoral registration law, or the interrelationship between the two laws, and so on that basis the committee would be wasting its time asking questions.
One of these is a person from whom I received what purported to be an apology. This was an apology for giving an unintended impression of duplicity, which they had to offer following comments by their Independent Complaints Reviewer. They denied providing guidance on how to investigate on the grounds that it was ultra vires and then refused to provide a document because it contained guidance on how to investigate. As it happened I never asked for or wanted guidance on how to 'investigate' only on how to 'interpret'. It was the very denial that they did provide guidance on how to investigate that suggested that they were doing it. Why else start denying it when the topic had not even come up?
He did not even manage in his letter to state correctly what he was apologising for. I have always thought that the apology must have been drafted by the same persons involved in misunderstanding the F of I request in question, which took me a Tribunal Appeal to get sorted out. I thought this because in the apology the same mistakes about what I was asking for were made once again.
I had asked for a copy of particular guidance on how to INTERPRET the output of one computing exercise, and given that they had published a number of pieces of such guidance, their refusal to provide this particular interpretation still seems plain irrational (until you read it, when a number of possible reasons for not wanting it to be scrutinised suggest themselves!).
When I said they should stop providing guidance on how to investigate if this was ultra vires, they said there was nothing to stop it, by which I assume they meant that I had to get a judicial review to stop it and nobody had done this yet. This is how 'in your face' that body can be.
They ( the committee) are talking about the need for audit committees to be independent. The problem then is who holds them to account when THEY GET THINGS WRONG, as the NFI has done with council tax discounts? What happens when audit committees follow slavishly legally false and prejudicial advice such as that provided in the Audit Commission Single Person Discount National Roll Out Audit Guidelines since at least 2007? What happens when they falsely believe that this output indicates that a person is (suspiciously) making two conflicting 'claims' at the same time?
The problem is that being 'independent' may bring with it a lack of accountability and the opportunity for individuals with strong personal social, political or even 'moral' objectives to have a wide and powerful space within which to lobby for and work for their own personal aims.
The 'moral' objectives of the Audit Commission were made clear when it said that councils had in its view a 'moral' duty to investigate people whom the Audit Commission thought 'might not be entitled' to their discount. The AC doesn't even know that the probabilities are as it keeps no account of numbers of abortive investigations/false positives.
Along with independence must come an absolute and clear requirement for objectivity, balance in all reporting and so on.
The approach of the Audit Commission has fallen far short in this, to the extent that it has had the brass neck to assert that councils are under a 'moral' obligation to subject people whom the AC thinks 'might not be entitled' to their discounts to investigations. This is not an 'accountancy' objection, it is a personal and subjective one, and one which it could be argued is highly improper, especially if adherence to it leads, as it appears to, to ignoring serious misrepresentations made about individual data subjects. If a council behaved like this, the AC would arguably be the first to jump up and down and make threats about public interest reports.
But then somebody from Scotland does mention accountability of Auditors. LOL He says it is a core purpose of Audit Scotland to attach meaning to its reports. BUT IT THINKS THERE IS A SOLE OCCUPANT DISCOUNT AND THAT YOU CAN TELL THAT A PERSON APPEARS NOT TO BE ENTITLED TO IT BY LOOKING AT THE ELECTORAL REGISTER. LOL. His own case proves that Audit Scotland is failing.
But the case of Scotland is instructive. The Scottish Parliament was fed what turned out to be a great deal of misinformation by Audit Scotland about how the National Fraud Initiative worked and what it did and was told it was merely bringing Scottish Law in line with that of England. It was never told the truth about the single person discount exercise, with Clive Lewis's opinions being trotted out as war hammers as if they proved anything about the matter, when in fact they seriously mislead. Then Audit Scotland produced a new code of data matching from which every vestige of protection against being identified as a potential thief using statistically and probabilistically based computer analysis had apparently been expunged. I have no doubt, having read its proposals, that the long term strategy of the Audit Commission and its partner data merchants is that this is precisely the sort of product which will be sold to the Secretary of State when the NFI gets its new home.
They are now talking about auditors carrying out enquiries which could lead to a public interest report. On the basis of Clive Lewis's legal opinion, such an enquiry could take place because some stupid auditor thought you could tell by looking at the electoral register that people were claiming a discount to which they appear not to be entitled. And if the auditor was 'independent' the council would be unable to protect even the vulnerable adults whom it has a duty to protect from this gross stupidity.
On whistle blowing, given that the NFI Audit Guides have been closely kept secrets, fat chance if it is the Auditor's conduct that needs a whistle blown at it.
They comment on the auditor's professional framework. This must be a joke!
On non payment of fees: why should the council pay the Audit Commission for making false and prejudicial assertions of a thousand or so of its residents, to many of whom it owes a duty of care as vulnerable adults?
They are now talking about data: well we all know the NFI does not understand the data it gets. It thinks some people are claiming a 'sole occupant discount' which does not exist. It keeps thinking this however many people tell it that it is wrong.
Now they are asked about the NFI. I have no idea whether Ms Waterman knows anything about council tax discount law. I would be very surprised if she did and if she looks on the NFI secure web site for legal information she will find utterly prejudicial and false information.
The American lady says 'in fact' this year they identified nearly billion pounds worth of fraud and error across all their participants. (45.30 minutes in according to the player). One has to assume this includes lots of pounds of allegedly but not actually fraudulent or erroneous section 11 discounts. Nothing about abortive investigations. Nothing about 'potential fraud and error'. How these people mislead so smoothly via passing remarks. She says that the connection with the local auditor will be lost wherever the new home of the NFI is.
This is odd because the NFI has said that the sole occupant discount matching is an auditor function. This was the whole thrust of their initial argument.
She mentions pushing the authority to pursue 'recommended' matches. There is nothing in the plans which would allow this relationship to continue. We know that Audit Commission's 'moral' position on fraud investigations/fishing trips. She lists the potential homes. Four she says, adding the NAO which was suggested in the consultations to the bill, but not initially by the Government. Oh so she has read these has she? (Probably got copies sent direct). She seems quite keen on the Cabinet Office of the three. I don't know why: what do they know about local government finance legislation or electoral law? Presumably the Cabinet Office has policies on data mining which the Audit Commission likes?
She likes the idea that the NFI is developed so that it can address 'future and operational financial 'risks'. I suppose she is getting a hint in about data mining here, and note the mentions the concept of 'risk' as opposed to actual inconsistencies, even though O'Higgins has only just told Parliament again, as usual, that the NFI matches data to identify 'inconsistencies'.
But we know the agenda of the Audit Commission, and that of credit reference agencies and data merchants, I suppose. She thinks that unless the NFI can develop and have matches 'addressed' you could lose the advantages. In other words the Audit Commission will no longer be able to use its influence to impose its individual agenda on evidence free fishing trips into statistically identified 'potentially suspicious' cases.
Mr O Higgins also puts in his penn'orth, but his accent is a bit hard to follow and the sound not good.
Yes he is talking about potentially something or other transactions. Transactions that 'may be suspicious'.
And he does say that the auditor can pursue the body to see whether they have in fact investigated those potentially suspicious transactions. He says there needs to be somebody responsible for following up on 'potentially suspicious' transactions. This argument goes against what it says in the explanatory notes for the draft local audit bill. It does against the code of practice which the Audit Commission wrote and gave to the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament.
From uncorrected transcript
Michael O'Higgins: It is not just a suitable home. It is slightly more than that. What the
National Fraud Initiative does is identify transactions that may be suspicious. They are then
passed to the relevant body for investigation. The advantage of the current arrangement is that
the auditor can pursue with the relevant body whether they have investigated those potentially
suspicious transactions. So there would need to be a nexus not just to identify potentially
suspicious transactions but to have somebody with responsibility for following up on them.
And Clive Lewis's account of the legal powers of the auditor makes it fairly clear that he can only investigate actual inconsistencies, actually suspicious evidence in documents relating to the accounts. He specifically says that an accountant does not have to be a bloodhound.
And N AXXXX said it was the results of investigations which would provide information to the Auditor that he in turn might investigate, not the data matching output.
Fudge and equivocation and self contradiction all over again?
Probably it will be as simple as that. O' Higgins comes up with a fudge, they accept it, end of end of end of?
Somebody from Scotland is speaking about transparency and accountability of auditors. LOL. Audit Scotland does not understand council tax discount law in Scotland! It thinks there is a sole occupancy discount and that you can tell by looking at the electoral register that a person appears not to be entitled to it. On this basis it believes that the electoral register is a document relating to the accounts of a council. The question is do the accounts present a true and fair account? But the electoral register cannot be used to show that this is or is not true. So Auditors should keep their hands of it where council tax discounts are concerned. IMHO.
What makes this more galling is that Audit Scotland told the Scottish Parliament that it matched data to identify actual inconsistencies and then wrote for itself a code of data matching practice which carefully removed all such requirements, which had existed in the previous code. This is another reason why I think DCLG staff are wrong when they say that a new code will contain the same definition as the old one. The Audit Bodies have already an existing code from which all such requirements appear to have been carefully and systematically expunged.
David Walker speaks about data assurance. LOL. How true it is that the quality of data needs to be assured, as within the NFI prejudicial if not downright libellous information is created and shared, Why does nobody think about ensuring the quality and accuracy about data relating to specific data subjects?
The Audit Commission says in its evidence
42 It is not clear what mechanism will be available to the new owner of the NFI to ensure that participants follow up data matches. The Commission currently uses its appointed auditors for this purpose.(Source: web site of Parliament)
This flatly contradicts what Nagina Akram said. She said it was the results of the investigations which were passed on to auditors, and that on that basis they might carry out their own investigations.
Once again, the Audit Commission produces misleading and self contradictory information. How can this body have gained and kept so much unaccountable and unchecked power?
This is a piece of very misleading text. The appointed auditors can comment on whether or not participants have followed up 'data matches'. They cannot 'ensure' that they do. But what the NFI neglected to say is that since matches may not show any evidence of any inconsistency or flaw with the accounts, there is nothing to follow up. What the NFI might mean is that auditors share its moral vision of a society in which auditors have the power to say 'he might be a thief, investigate him' on an evidence-free basis. But as usual, the text itself merely muddies the waters. You have to hand it to the Audit Commission, they are really good at using fuzzy language to persuade politicians without the time or inclination to look beyond the largely vacuous surface. This is another example of what some councils call the tendency of the Audit Commission to 'bully councils' and what others have called an interference with the right of councils to choose how to carry out discretionary duties in any way which they think to be reasonable.
Even the legal briefing produced for the NFI commented on certain practices being 'reasonable', but as we know the NFI, for whatever reason, appears unwilling to or incapable of taking what that lawyer said on board. Ever likely she left soon afterwards: who would want to work with such a body?
