Missing Bristol City Council cash causes concern

Bristol City Council's refugee resettlement team had "wide and unrestricted access to cash", an audit found

Serious concerns have been raised over missing cash related to a Bristol City Council team that supports refugees.

Hundreds of pounds had been left unaccounted for in the refugee resettlement team, which is responsible for handing out Home Office grants to families fleeing war and persecution, an audit committee was told.

An internal audit found the team had "wide and unrestricted access to cash".

Auditors will conduct a follow-up report in the near future.

The team helps people fleeing war and persecution. Families assessed by the United Nations as particularly vulnerable are eligible for formal resettlement in countries like the UK.

Councillors on the audit committee were informed at a meeting on Monday that some money had been going missing, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

An internal audit found a lack of documented procedures for cash handling, and that controls to restrict access to cash were not in place.

One member of staff is solely responsible for ordering cash, preparing receipts, counting cash, and inputting data into a finance spreadsheet. But this spreadsheet does not record the amount of cash the team maintains.

A report told the audit committee that £800 of cash reported was missing after the staff member responsible became unavailable and another staff member was not assigned their tasks.

It added: "Our sample testing of records for 10 cash deliveries made between December 2022 and September 2023 identified that a different cash amount was delivered to the amount ordered on two separate occasions.

"One instance amounted to £10 due to human error, and another £100 due to this amount not being delivered in the previous week.

"The entire asylum team has access to the cash held at the office and can update the spreadsheet used to record payments — meaning that cash could potentially be taken, and payment records altered to hide theft."

Council bosses told the audit committee that they have now tightened up governance controls and started using prepaid cards, which cut the amount of cash the team handles by half. But part of the reason behind the problem was the recent sharp increase in workload.

Denise Murray, director of finance at Bristol City Council, said: "This is the first area where we've received a 'no assurance' report for a number of years.

"I wouldn't want people to anticipate that this is a common occurrence, it isn't."