Examination of credit card use and management: City of Playford

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

I concluded that the City of Playford did not always use and manage its credit cards efficiently and economically during the period I examined (1 July 2016 to 30 April 2018).

We recommended that the Council should: 

• perform a formal and regular analysis of its credit card and accounts payable expenditure to: 
  • identify areas for further improvement in the use of credit cards  
  • inform its procurement strategy 
• review its policies and guidelines regularly and by the due 
• consider updating its credit card policy and guidelines for the improvements we  identified 
• consider, as it decides future risk priorities, having an internal auditor or legal advisor review the delegation process and documents to ensure they are a clear, complete and accurate record of the delegations under the LG Act 
• review a sample of credit card transactions to ensure the independent review is operating effectively and in line with its revised policy and guidelines 
• consider having a suitable senior officer assess the Executive’s credit card transactions against the expenditure principles and report any questionable transactions to the  Executive group
• have its audit committee periodically review a report of the CEO’s credit card transactions to ensure the expenditure is reasonable and for business purposes  
• update its policies for:  
  • the expenditure principles that staff need to apply and clearly demonstrate at the time expenditure is incurred  
  • the nature and extent of information needed to adequately justify the business  purpose of the expenditure 
• maintain adequate records to explain its expenses and demonstrate transparency in the decision‐making process and the proper use of public money 
• consider updating its travel and hospitality policies and guidelines for the improvements we identified 
• in revising its expenditure policies, consider consulting with its community, and other key people or groups, to better understand the public’s expectations of acceptable expenditure behaviours 
• review its business expense transactions to ensure the new/revised policies and guidelines are implemented and operating effectively 
• review its employee recognition policy and guidelines with specific focus on staff performance and the expenditure principles 
• revise its Mayor support and elected member support policy guidelines to remove the provision of special functions
• 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.