Agenda item

To receive an update on progress on the annual Internal Audit Plan.

The Committee received and considered the Internal Audit Update.

This report summarised the activities of Internal Audit for the period April to

February 2032 drawing together progress on the Annual Internal Audit Plan, risk

management and other activities carried out by Internal Audit.

Between April 2022 and 28 February 2023, 7 grant audits and 23 reports/memos were finalised, 2 reports/memos were issued in draft awaiting management responses, 1 was in draft awaiting quality review and 16 audits were work in progress. Comparative figures from the same point at the previous year had been included within the report and the outcomes from those Audits. Since the report had been published further reports had been issued on the Open Learning Centre, Debt Management, Street Lighting and one of the School Fallout reports as well as having certified another grant. None of these reports had a partial opinion.

There were no new significant findings to report since the last meeting in January 2023.

The resources available for internal audit had been affected during 2022/23 with recruitment of the internal audit apprentices being delayed and a permanent senior auditor left the Council on 2 January 2023. Therefore, there had been a delay it audits throughout the year, but the team were hoping to catch up on some of these audits in the final quarter with many audits currenting in progress.

In the plan there had been 67 audits scheduled for the year. The Team has 35 audits in final and draft out and 16 still in progress. A number of audits had been deferred or were no longer relevant to undertake such as recording of decisions where separate work had been undertaken by the Borough Solicitor, so this audit hadn’t been required. A detailed summary of this could be circulated to the Committee if they wished.

As a result of the update provided, and as a result of the Committee’s comments and

questions, the following points were made:

·       The SARS audit had been asked by management to be pushed back as new procedures had been introduced and they wanted those to bed in before an audit was undertaken.

·       IR35 Audit was originally in the plan, but it was unclear what was required.

·       The issues with the Amazon Card had since been addressed so that audit could be picked back up.

·       The IT audits were on hold and would be revisited at a later date.

·       PPR was deferred as new processes were being put in place.

·       Larchwood hadn’t been undertaken due to capacity within the Audit Team.

·       The Parenting Assessment Audit had been deferred at the request of the Assistant Director.

·       The second housing benefit audit had been cancelled so that there wasn’t two undertaken in the same year due to a previous audit being deferred.

·       Homelessness hadn’t been undertaken as Housing Allocations were already being audited and it would have been too much pressure on the team.

·       Domiciliary Care had been deferred due to the Team capacity.

·       The pupil referral unit audit had been pushed back at the request of the Assistant Director to December 2023.

·       One school had been academized so wouldn’t require an audit anymore.

·       The apprenticeships within the team had been in post since November 2022 and had had a positive impact. It was hoped that they would be brought to the next meeting to meet the Committee.

·       It was planned that the plan for the next year would be more flexible going forward to allow for changes.

·       The Audit Team were hoping to recruit a Principal Auditor with leadings towards IT Audits and Information Governance Audits so that external audit resources weren’t relied on.

·       An IT Audit needs assessment would be undertaken to see what audits were required to see where the key areas of audit were.

·       The 16 audits in progress would go against the data for this year. These audits were very near completion.

·       Endorsement from the Committee was sought for departments to complete the Audit Recommendation tracker.

The Committee noted the update on progress on the Internal Audit Plan for 2022/23.