Chamber and committees

The broad sweep of stuff from staff was okay.

No, I realise that you do not check every transaction.

Broadly, then, the claims are from the senior management team for entertaining.

I am just trying to find out how many people are involved.

I have a final question about policies. Compliance with policy would have been part of the audit. You might say that that is why we have the report, but the issues did not happen overnight. It is clear that there has been divergence from the policy over a period. It did not miraculously appear in one report. Therefore, what has been picked up in the past in terms of compliance with policies?

The chair approves expenses on the basis that they adhere to policy—or that is the theory.

I suppose that I have to ask why that was not challenged at any point. Although the chair had approved the claims, when the documentation was sent to the finance people, would they not have said, “Hey, there are documents missing here. It doesn’t comply”? Was there not a route by which the finance people could have raised that issue?

Your report highlighted one or two fairly extreme issues, such as the cost of a dinner. However, your report also says that there are

“widespread issues with expense claims being submitted and approved without supporting itemised receipts”

and so on. Can you tell us a bit about some of the issues that were not high level so that we can understand the scope and extent of how that process has been operating?

I am sorry to interrupt you. A large proportion of claims were properly supported by receipts. It was only a certain proportion of claims from a particular source that were not supported.

I agree.

I come back to my original question. If we leave aside the headline stuff that we have been discussing, what sort of run-of-the-mill expenses were being claimed without supporting documentation?