Agenda and minutes

Members are asked to declare any disclosable pecuniary or affected interests in respect of any matter to be considered at this meeting.

Any Member with a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest in a matter should withdraw from the meeting when the matter is under consideration and should notify the Democratic Services Officer in attendance that they are withdrawing as they have such an interest. If the Disclosable Pecuniary Interest is not entered on the register of Members interests the Monitoring Officer must be notified of the interest within 28 days.

Any Member with an affected Interest in a matter must disclose the interest to the meeting.  There is no requirement to withdraw from the meeting when the interest is only an affected interest, but the Monitoring Officer should be notified of the interest, if not previously notified of it, within 28 days of the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest.

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the previous meeting of the Committee and the Annual Meeting on 15 May 2024.

Actions were followed up arising from the minutes of the meeting held on 13 March 2024, and the following responses were received:

Page 4 – Pension Fund - Stuart McKellar, Executive Director: Resources informed members of the committee that costs against the pension fund had been explored and confirmed there was no scope to recapture any of the costs.

Page 5 – Risk Register – Sally Henderson, Head of Audit and Risk Management informed members of the committee that senior officers had carried out a deep dive of the Risk Register and an amended version would added to the agenda in September. (Action: Risk Register be added to agenda for September committee meeting.)

Page 6 – List of repeated assurances – Sally Henderson, Head of Audit and Risk Management informed members of the committee the list of repeated assurances with adverse opinions were included in the report on today’s agenda.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting of the committee held on the 13 March 2024 and of the Annual Meeting on 15 May 2024 be approved as a correct record.

There were no urgent items of business.

To note the Head of Audit and Risk Management’s Annual Report setting out the Head of Internal Audit’s Opinion for 2023/24.

Sally Hendrick, Head of Audit and Risk Management presented the Head of Internal Audit’s Opinion for 2023/24.

The report included an opinion for the year of partial assurance, based on work undertaken by internal auditors conducted throughout the year. Sally Hendrick commented that the partial assurance opinion was based on the number of major recommendations raised and the number of repeat areas with recommendations not carried out when audits were followed up a year later.

It was noted page 15 onwards referred to the list of audits containing major recommendations and the opinion formed. The report included all audits this year, but member’s attention was drawn to those audits which had not been seen by committee members previously. These included a council wide procurement audit with 5 major recommendations; a business continuity follow up audit with three major recommendations; a trees re-audit which had previously raised a partial opinion and another partial opinion following a full re-audit; a school places planning audit, a school re-audit which found a major recommendation had not been implemented at follow up, three separate school audits; an establishment audit which found some officers were not using the standard template to claim mileage; a supply payments audit which highlighted supporting documentation was not always given for urgent payments and an IR35 audit with one major recommendation.

Attention was drawn to page 19 onwards which showed those other areas not previously reported where major recommendations had been raised in previous years but not addressed which were business change support costs, commercial property, community and continuing education and services to schools.

The biggest issue facing the team was that major recommendations were not always implemented and had to be raised again. Such issues were identified through the recommendation’s tracker updates or through a full re-audit.

Members were assured the team were compliant with public audit standards. An external assessment took place in 2012 and an internal audit was carried out by Sally Hendrick each year, including this year. In addition, performance indicators indicated most clients were satisfied with their service although the team would like more client satisfaction surveys returned. It was acknowledged delivery times could be improved but this was largely down to lack of resources in the team.

It was noted there was an update in the report at 9.1 on fraud and irregularity during the full year. As previously reported, there had been a successful prosecution on a fraudulent application for a blue badge.

Sally Hendrick and committee members thanked Michelle Woodhatch, Sally’s deputy who left the Council on 19^th June to take up a position at another authority, for her hard work and assistance during 2023/24, especially with school audits.

In response to questions, the following points were noted:

-        There were two audits rated good this year – a good assurance opinion was given on discretionary hardship fund and follow up of Councils data indicator arrangements identified a huge improvement.

-        There were two vacant posts currently. A temporary Principal Auditor had  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.