Management of Travelers' Sites
Source: data.gov.uk (2018-10-29)

CYC Internal Audit Reports 2017. These reports are presented to the Audit and Governance Committee for consideration, and are also included with the agenda papers for the [relevant meetings](http://democracy.york.gov.uk/ieListMeetings.aspx?CommitteeId=437). 

Reports are also grouped together by calendar year and published at this York Open Data platform. Reports for other years are available at the [__CYC Internal Audit Reports__](https://data.yorkopendata.org/dataset?q=internal+audit&sort=score+desc%2C+metadata_modified+desc) datasets.

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Management of Travellers' Sites 2016-17 
City of York Council 
Internal Audit Report  
 
 
 
 
 
 
Business Unit: Health, Housing and Adult Social Care 
Responsible Officer: AD Housing & Community Safety 
Service Manager: Supported Housing Manager 
Date Issued: 27th April 2017 
Status: Final 
Reference: 11530/004 
 
Overall Audit Opinion 
High Assurance 
Actions 
0 
0 
P3 
P2 
P1 
0 

 
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Summary and Overall Conclusions 
 
Introduction 
The City of York Council is responsible for providing management and support services to travellers’ sites, taking in to account the distinct 
cultural needs and values of the community as well as its commitment to the promotion of equality.  
 
There are three travellers’ sites owned and managed by the Council; James Street (20 pitches), Clifton Site (23 pitches) and Osbaldwick Site (18 
pitches).  
 
The Council has appointed a site manager who, along with 3 staff members, manages the daily operation of the sites. The housing department is 
principally responsible for providing management and support services to the travellers’ sites, however, in reality services are provided by a 
range of council departments and agencies across the city.  
 
The 2016/17 budget allocation for the management of the Council’s travellers’ sites amounts to £270,322.75. This audit of travellers’ sites will 
aim to provide assurance that the Council is fulfilling all statutory requirements in its management of travellers’ sites, with particular focus on the 
day-to-day running of sites.  
 
Objectives and Scope of the Audit 
The purpose of this audit was to provide assurance to management that procedures and controls within the system will ensure that: 
- 
The Council's management of travellers' sites is compliant with the relevant legislation. 
- 
The Council provides the same standards of management and support services to travellers' sites as to customers in other forms of social 
housing. 
 
The receipt and arrears procedure for travellers’ sites, originally included in the audit specification, is now being reviewed as part of the 2016/17 
audit of Housing Rents.  
 
Key Findings 
The audit work carried out on the management of travellers’ sites by the Council highlighted that, at the time of the audit, systems, processes and 
the controls were robust and sufficient in mitigating risk. A couple of minor issues were identified; however these had already been considered by 
staff and were in the process of being rectified.  
 

 
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The Council has up-to-date policies and documents that are compliant with the relevant legislation, such as the Mobile Homes Act (1983), 
Human Rights Act 1998 and Equality Act (2010). The Council developed a Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Strategy (2013- 2018) that included an 
action plan with agreed deadlines. Whilst this strategy has a well-developed action plan to improve both the management of travellers’ sites and 
identify opportunities to provide more pitches, it has not progressed since 2014. Senior Managers will be reviewing this Strategy during 2017/18 
as it still remains advertised on the Council website and is available for download by the general public. 
 
The team at Ordnance Lane keep thorough and detailed records on all of the correspondence, repairs requests and general queries for each 
tenant. These records are kept on the Document Management System (DMS). For each tenant in the sample we selected there was a signed 
Pitch Agreement on file. The only minor issue noted is that there was not always a copy of the tenant’s identification on file. This has already 
been acknowledged by the housing team and for all applications going forward copies of identification will be kept on DMS alongside the 
application document. 
 
Statistics produced by the BI Hub show that 94.77% of repairs requested for travellers sites in 2016/17 were completed within the allocated time 
frame. Repairs completed within the timeframe for social housing tenants were 95.03%. From the data analysis performed and using the data 
compiled by the BI hub, it is evident that tenants across the three travellers' sites receive the same standard of service that tenants in other forms 
of social housing receive. 
 
Overall Conclusions 
It was found that the arrangements for managing risk were very good.  An effective control environment appears to be in operation. Our overall 
opinion of the controls within the system at the time of the audit was that they provided High Assurance. 
 
 
 

 
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Annex 1 
Audit Opinions and Priorities for Actions 
Audit Opinions 
Audit work is based on sampling transactions to test the operation of systems. It cannot guarantee the elimination of fraud or 
error. Our opinion is based on the risks we identify at the time of the audit. 
 
Our overall audit opinion is based on 5 grades of opinion, as set out below. 
 
Opinion 
Assessment of internal control 
High Assurance 
Overall, very good management of risk. An effective control environment appears to be in operation. 
Substantial 
Assurance 
Overall, good management of risk with few weaknesses identified.  An effective control environment is in 
operation but there is scope for further improvement in the areas identified. 
Reasonable 
Assurance 
Overall, satisfactory management of risk with a number of weaknesses identified.  An acceptable control 
environment is in operation but there are a number of improvements that could be made. 
Limited Assurance 
Overall, poor management of risk with significant control weaknesses in key areas and major 
improvements required before an effective control environment will be in operation. 
No Assurance 
Overall, there is a fundamental failure in control and risks are not being effectively managed.  A number of 
key areas require substantial improvement to protect the system from error and abuse. 
 
Priorities for Actions 
Priority 1 
A fundamental system weakness, which presents unacceptable risk to the system objectives and requires urgent 
attention by management. 
Priority 2 
A significant system weakness, whose impact or frequency presents risks to the system objectives, which needs to 
be addressed by management. 
Priority 3 
The system objectives are not exposed to significant risk, but the issue merits attention by management. 
 

 
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Where information resulting from audit work is made public or is provided to a third party by the client or by Veritau then this must be done on the understanding that 
any third party will rely on the information at its own risk.  Veritau will not owe a duty of care or assume any responsibility towards anyone other than the client in 
relation to the information supplied. Equally, no third party may assert any rights or bring any claims against Veritau in connection with the information. Where 
information is provided to a named third party, the third party will keep the information confidential.