Employee Spending - Find a freedom of information request

Summary: We are interested in the systems you have in place to control and process employee spend.

Questions:

1. What finance system do you currently have in place?

2. What HR system do you use?

3. How many employees (full and part time) do you have?

4. What processes or solutions do you have in place for employees to submit and reclaim expenses?

5. What improvements (if any) are planned for this process in the next 24 months?

6. How many expense claims are submitted on average per year?

7. Are employees able to compile, submit and approve expenses remotely?

8. Have there been investigations relating to expense compliance in your organisation in the last 24 months? If so, how many?

9. What is your current Approval Process for Expenses?

10.How many miles are travelled monthly?

11.Do you have an expense policy in place?

12.What percentage of expenses are checked?

13.How do staff book travel?

14.Do you use a Travel Management Company to book travel?

15.What was your annual spend on Expense and Travel for the fiscal year 2019/2020 or an equivalent annual period excluding 2020?

1. Business World, proprietary software of the Unit 4 Group of Companies.

2. Business World, as with question 1.

3. As at 20 September, Schools 4734, Council 5301 and Fire Service 395 Retained Fire Fighters, Whole time fire-fighters are contained within Council employee numbers.

4. Business World expenses system is used for claims, with self-service functionality.

5. Further roll out of the self-service functionality, and consideration of mobile developed apps from the Business World solution.

6. More than 10,000 across the directorates based on data for 2019/2020.

7. As a result of the pandemic, all those who previously submitted expenses are now able to complete this remotely either individually or with business support.

8. Regular audits are performed across the calendar year to review compliance with policy.

9. Line Manager approval for expenses claimed within policy.

10.On average across the 12 month period (2019/2020), there are over 636k miles travelled per month.

11.Yes, the policy states what can be expensed and what cannot. It also details employee and line manager responsibilities.

Please see the link to the Travel Policy below: https://professionals.lincolnshire.gov.uk/downloads/file/584/travel-policy

12.All expenses are checked.

13.Either individually or via business support and the policy attached.

Please refer to link provided for Travel Policy.

14.No.

15.Travel expenses for 2019/20 across all directorates was £4,644,028.14 and non travel expenses (relocation, training, professional memberships etc.) was £790,307.30.