Examination of credit card use and management: City of Charles Sturt

This report communicates my findings on the examination of credit card use and management by the City of Charles Sturt.

I concluded that the City of Charles Sturt did not always use and manage its credit cards efficiently and economically during the period I examined.

We recommended that the Council should: 

• extend its analysis of credit card and accounts payable expenditure to: 
  • identify areas for further improvement in its use of credit cards   
  • inform its procurement strategy 
• consider updating its credit card policy and procedures for the improvements we identified 
• reinforce to staff the importance of the independent reviewer’s responsibility  
• update its credit card policy to require the CEO’s credit card transactions to be independently reviewed  
• have its audit committee periodically (eg quarterly) review a report of the CEO’s credit card transactions to ensure the expenditure is reasonable and for business purposes  
• review its expenditure policies to ensure they include:  
  • the expenditure principles staff need to apply and clearly demonstrate at the time the expenditure is incurred   
  • the nature and extent of information needed to adequately justify the business purpose of the expenditure. This may include having sensitive expenditure approved before it is incurred 
• review its credit card policy and procedure for the recordkeeping requirements to ensure the reconciliation records adequately explain the expenditure, including the business purpose 
• consider updating its travel and hospitality, gifts and employee expenses policies for the improvements we identified 
• review internal policies and guidelines regularly and by the due date 
• review its hospitality and gift expense transactions to ensure the new policy and procedures are implemented and operating effectively 
• consider streamlining its policies by having one policy on recognising achievement that covers all recognition programs 
• review its recognition of service policy, dated May 2015, to provide further direction and guidance on the proper use of public money to ensure:  
  • the reason for the recognition is clearly aligned to the Council’s business purpose 
  • the expenditure is necessary and the amount spent represents prudent expenditure behaviour 
• review its recognition of achievement policy and guideline, dated September 2019, with specific focus on staff performance and the expenditure principles. The Council should consider keeping volunteer recognition separate by providing for it in its volunteer policy 
• to inform its decision on future practice, survey its community to understand the public’s expectation of what sensitive expenditure may or may not be funded by public money, or coordinate with other councils to obtain this information 
• review its recognition of achievement transactions to ensure the new policy and guideline are implemented and operating effectively 
• revise its Council members’ allowance and support policy to remove the provision of alcohol; establish expenditure limits for the provision of meals and consider whether the following expenditure is consistent with the expenditure principles:  
  • the Mayor’s Christmas dinner  
  • the elected members’ service recognition gifts
• in future, in our opinion, better explain the business purpose and business benefit to the Council before incurring sensitive expenditure 
• have its audit committee regularly scrutinise sensitive expenditure that results in benefits to the elected members to determine whether it is a proper use of public money.