Council 'lost track' of £1.8m in cash transactions

Bristol City Council said it is taking "immediate action"

Bristol City Council lost track of £1.8m petty cash transactions by staff last year, a damning report found.

Social workers issued payments of up to £500 without anyone checking what they were for, investigators concluded.

An internal audit unearthed a number of "key weaknesses", including lack of a central record and no follow-up checks on emergency payments.

A council spokesperson said: “We are now taking immediate action by reviewing all petty cash sources with a view to significantly reduce the number of non-essential accounts."

A probe into the authority's cash floats - called imprest accounts - returned the lowest possible audit finding of "no assurance".

But inspectors concluded that the oversight, controls, processes and guidance across the council were effective, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The authority held a number of cash accounts for various purposes, including as part of statutory and emergency payments for those in need.

But an internal audit unearthed a lack of control or awareness by bosses and employees bypassing council systems.

Individual social workers also requested, authorised and issued cash payments of up to £500 without oversight, insecure money storage arrangements and no follow-up check on the validity of emergency payments.

There was also inconsistent balance sheets and no central record of what was going out.

'Lack of resource'

While internal auditors did not find evidence of fraudulent payments, the team concluded the risk of fraud and error remained high.

The report, due to be discussed later, said the children and education directorate was responsible for the vast majority of the spend - £1.7m - with most of the rest made by the adults and communities team.

"A common theme was lack of resource to administer cash payments and that council systems were being bypassed," the report stated.

The report said council chiefs had accepted the findings and agreed to a series of actions.

A Bristol City Council spokesperson said: “After conducting an internal audit into the council’s petty cash accounts, it was determined that the level of guidance, oversight, processes and controls of these accounts was not acceptable."

Council bosses plan to "eliminate all cash-based purchases" where appropriate.

“Our finance team is also in the process of producing a revised policy with clear instructions for those operating and relying on petty cash accounts, as well as adding robust standardisation on the opening and closing of such accounts.

“We hope to have established this newly revised policy framework by the end of August and will continue to work with all services that rely on petty cash to ensure that they become fully compliant," the spokesperson added.