Federal Audit & Scrutiny Committee reports

The Federal Audit and Scrutiny Committee (FASC) reports to the Federal Board and has the role set out here.

The Committee's reports back to members appear here, with the most recent report at the top. 

September 2024

FASC held its September meeting on the 19th. The major item of business was to review the first major revision of the risk register following the general election. The process is led by the Chief Executive who had carried out a significant edit of the register as many of the risks were no longer valid in the post election environment. However there were significant new risks because of the increased size of the parliamentary party - such as the capacity for campaigning after the rapid expansion, and renewed political strategy. In addition, we remain concerned at the risks of donation reporting with the reliance on local parties and treasurers.

FASC has also started planning for two oncoming reviews that have been requested - the first is of the complaints handling process with respect to LGBT+ and gender-critical parties, and comparing in an objective fashion the consistency of administration and approach by the federal system. In addition, a control sample of complaints relating to elected members would also be included in this work.

The second review would be on the handling of recent legal cases, and whether the process is right, adequate and efficient.

June 2024

FASC met to review the external auditors report of their audit of the annual accounts for 2023. The committee agreed to accept the Audit Findings Report, and approved the draft accounts by circulation.

May 2024

FASC met with the Chief Executive, Mike Dixon for the quarterly review of the risk register. We reviewed the most pressing risks including current legal cases, maximising general election resources (and minimising wasted effort), and the autumn conference conundrum (due to be decided at Federal Board in May).

April 2024

FASC met with Kerry Buist, Head of Compliance to gain assurance on the party’s approach to compliance. Details of the training programme for election agents that has been successfully delivered across the country were considered. The next stages are to ensure that accredited and trained agents are matched with seats.

The compliance of party financial reporting is based on a bottom-up approach of local parties reporting regularly, and therefore reliant on treasurers to ensure party overall compliance. The training model for agents could be implemented in providing a cadre of accredited local party treasurers in the future.

March 2024

FASC held a curtailed meeting because of staff sickness. It was reported that Federal Conference had voted to amend the constitution relating to the membership criteria for Federal Appeals Panel, based on FASC’s previous recommendations to Federal Board. It now remains for the other recommendations to be taken forward between FB and the State parties.

February 2024

FASC met on 8 February, and the main business was to meet the Party’s external auditors (UHY Hacker Young) to scope and plan their audit of the 2023 accounts. The main risk factors identified were recognition of revenue, and management override of controls. We noted that a May General Election would pose some logistical challenges to the audit, but that there was a contingency plan in place as the audit had a statutory timescale.

January 2024

FASC met on Thursday 11 January. Main business was a review of the implementation of the recommendations of the 2019 election review chaired by Dorothy Thornhill, with Mike Dixon, the Chief Executive Committee. It was concluded that these had been largely completed, subject to limited resources. The committee also reviewed the most recent Risk Register with Mike.

November 2023

FASC met on 1 November, and considered its findings on membership of the Federal Appeals Panel. The committee decided on its recommendations to make it easier to fill vacancies on the panel without compromising on standards. These will be forwarded to the Federal Board. The committee also received an update on the internal audit work being undertaken.

July 2023

At our meeting on 5 July we talked to Head of Fundraising, Hannah Billington, about the processes for accepting larger donations to the Party. We plan to extend these discussions at our next meeting in September. We also talked to Director of Operations, Trudy Church, about human resources issues at the Federal Party.

June 2023

At its meeting on 6 June, the Committee considered the audit findings report on the 2022 Federal Party accounts from UHY Hacker Young.

The Committee also progressed its plans for an internal audit, and scheduled a review of legacy donations for September.
 

May 2023

After our inaugural meeting in late March, FASC got down to business in this month's meeting.

We considered progress on the annual audit, with a report from the Financial Controller. We then reviewed the Risk Register with the Chief Executive, Mike Dixon. The Risk Register is an integral part of the Federal Party's management systems. It is maintained by the Chief Executive personally, and regularly discussed with the management team. 

We also considered how to give the Party additional assurance on the health of internal controls, and are planning an internal audit. This would be a regular feature of FASC's activities.