To consider report FIN/667 of the Deputy Head of Southern Internal Audit Partnership.
Minutes:
The Committee considered report FIN/667 of the Deputy Head of Southern Internal Audit Partnership (SIAP), the Council’s Internal Auditors. The purpose of the report was to update the Committee on the status of ‘live’ internal audit reports, the progress against the Annual Audit Plan and provide a summary of internal audit as well as any significant issues which might impact the annual audit opinion.
The Deputy Head of SIAP took the opportunity to brief the Committee on the work as detailed in the report and, in doing so advised that:
· Although the number of overdue actions (section 4 of the Progress Report) was increasing they were not overly concerned at this stage as the original target dates had been overly optimistic and they were satisfied with both the reasons for the delays and the revised targets. SIAP would monitor those actions and discuss both the reasons for the delay and the revised timescales with officers. SIAP would escalate the issue with the Council’s Corporate Management Team (CMT), and potentially the Audit Committee (through the Progress Report), if they became concerned.
· The information regarding the report concerning a ‘limited’ assurance opinion (section 5 of the Progress Report), whilst detailing the observations and management actions, did not reflect the many positive observations (such as the effectiveness of policies and document) found during the audit. The Committee was provided with further context regarding the audit and was advised that the audit was on the borderline of a ‘reasonable’/’limited’ assurance opinion.
· The rolling work programme (section 7 of the Progress Report) was not significantly behind in its delivery, although there had been some slippage which was mainly due to stretched resources. SIAP was working with CMT to return to the scheduled delivery plan to enable a timely annual opinion.
The Committee considered the report and:
· The Committee expressed disappointment that the Housing Rents Audit (section 5 of the Progress Report) had identified that effective monitoring around arrears of housing rents was being hampered. Given the historic issue the Council had experience regarding overcharging of Council rents, the Committee sought assurance regarding the level of impact. The Deputy Head of SIAP provided more detail and assured the Committee that the miscalculations were not a repeat of the historic issue.
As the Deputy Head of SIAP did not have the information available, it was agreed that they would circulate a response to the Committee via email on the following matters:
- Whether the incorrect rent level was due to an error in the formula being applied.
- Where reconciliations were applied due to differences, whether those differences were material, and whether a value could be put to it.
· Noted that the scope for the User Access Audit (identified in section 7 of the Progress Report) had not been defined yet as it was scheduled for Quarter 4. It was anticipated it would include reviewing how users were set up and removed from the system as well as whether access to IT systems was altered when an officer changed jobs.
· Asked for clarification on the driver safety scores referred to in Annex 1 to the Progress Report. As the Audit was from 2022/23 the Deputy Head of SIAP did not have the information available at the meeting. They therefore agreed to obtain the relevant information and circulate it to the Committee via email.
The Deputy Head of SIAP credited CMT and stated that it invested heavily in the Audit Plan and did not “shy away” from audit areas which were challenging.
RESOLVED
That the Committee receive the report and note progress to date, as at 31 July 2024.
Supporting documents: