Agenda item
Internal Audit and Anti-Fraud Progress Report
- Meeting of Audit Committee, Tuesday, 21st July, 2020 5.30 p.m. (Item 5.3)
- View the background to item 5.3
Minutes:
Mr Paul Rock, Head of Internal Audit, Fraud and Risk presented the Internal Audit and Anti-Fraud progress report. Mr Rock said the report provided an update on progress against the delivery of the 2019/20 Annual Internal Audit Plan and highlighted any significant issues since the last report to the Audit Committee in May 2020.
Mr Rock referred members to paragraph 3.2 and the number of audits completed for 2019/20. He informed members the CCTV audit was cancelled due to an external review being undertaken. Mr Rock stated the Divisional Directors for the three ‘limited’ assurance reports were present for the meeting as outlined in paragraph 3.5 of the report. He referred members to Table 4, at paragraph 3.7 which set out the draft internal audit reports which were awaiting responses and said this had been discussed earlier. However, he wanted to highlight that despite the team’s collective best efforts, there were nine reports outstanding.
Mr Rock continued saying he was particularly pleased with the progress made by the Anti-Fraud team, especially the recovery of social housing properties and the financial impact they had achieved plus the raising of awareness within the Council and public alike. Mr Rock also drew the attention of Members to Appendix C and the collaborative work between the Borough and Barts Health Trust.
The Committee then heard from the Divisional Directors present:
IT Business Continuity and Resilience
Mr Adrian Gorst, Divisional Director for IT, stated the IT Directorate had witnessed a considerable amount of change, with IT being moved from a traditional hosting site to a cloud-based and vendor hosted site. He said the IT department were also preparing for the end of the Agilisys contract for March 2021, and this audit had been very timely. He said it was helpful to know the risks the service carried and what needed to be done to design the new service and eliminate the risks. Mr Gorst referred to the recommendations made within the report and said risk register had been updated to reflect the current control environment. He said the processes and procedures were being updated which he hoped to achieve by the end of July 2020. If reference to the other recommendations, Mr Gorst said these were in hand. He was they were looking to recruit to the Head of IT post, but in the meantime a project officer had been assigned to progress the recommendations.
In response to questions from members the following was noted:
- In reference to the first bullet point, page 100, Mr Gorst was asked what had been done to update the Council’s IT disaster recovery plan, considering the different ways of working due to the Pandemic. Mr Gorst responded saying IT was forever evolving and a lot of the applications provided were through a contractual arrangement. He said the vendors were obligated under the contract to ensure applications were available. For those application which are part of the Microsoft suite, weekly meetings are held with Microsoft to make sure best practice is applied. Furthermore, the roll out Office 365 is 50% complete so the risk of Citrix VDI has been reduced, although this remains a risk.
Financial Delegations
Mr Kevin Bartle, Interim Divisional Director for Finance, Procurement and Audit addressed the Committee and stated he believed that the revised financial delegations process had been a very positive piece of work. He said when he joined the Council to help improve the financial controls, an appropriate financial delegation system did not exist. This was put in place and then audited by Internal Audit. Mr Bartle said the direction of travel was very positive and looking at the progress he would argue substantial improvement has been made. Mr Bartle said there were some areas where the letter of the law had not been followed, for example where the Senior Accountant had approved delegation rather than the Finance Manager. However, it was still approved and was being looked at by a third party.
Mr Rock said he respected Mr Bartle’s view and whilst they were not entirely in agreement, there is an opportunity to introduce ‘prospects for improvement’ ratings for future audits which will give a clearer recognition over business areas that are improving.
In response to questions from Members the following was noted:
- Ms Charlotte Webster, Independent Person cautioned against the example used and said technically the inappropriate delegation goes against the spirit of financial delegation system, in that a named person must have authority to approve the delegation. Mr Bartle responded saying he acknowledged the point Ms Webster was making but the example he had given was to assist the Committee in contextualising the type of breach being talked about. It was clear Mr Bartle was not condoning the action per se.
Financial Safeguarding for Service Users with Learning Disability
Ms Claudia Brown, Division Director for Adult Social Care said she welcomed the Internal Audit Report because as a new Director it provided useful insight into how client’s finances with a learning disability were being managed. Ms Brown said the recommendations within the report had been developed into an action plan, which she hoped to complete by October 2020. She said Officers were being asked to question carers and/or relatives about how finances for the client were being managed as part of visits made and/or phone calls made. Ms Brown said the client database - Mosaic was being updated but she hoped the forms and the approach would be consistent across the service. She said Officers would be expected to deliver the goals and this would be part of the Annual Review conducted with clients. Ms Brown said staff would be trained and briefed on how to have those discussions with providers.
In response to questions from Members the following was noted.
- Ms Brown was asked how the service assesses the Client’s best interests are being served by the carer and/or relative who is responsible for the personal budget. Ms Brown said they could identify if there was an issue when for example, client contributions cease to the care home and or if money is not being spent on personal items for the individual. She said this is when the service would intervene but for the most part it was based on trust that the relative would have the best interest of the client in mind, especially has they are usually subject to a Court of Protection Order with a Appointeeship in place to manage the money.
The Chair thanked the Divisional Directors for their contributions and said she hoped the implementation of recommendations within the Internal Audit reports would lead to improvements within their areas of responsibility.
Following on from the presentations, general questions regarding the report were asked.
- Councillor Francis referred to the page 110 and asked how many Members had attended the training sessions covering the Constitution changes. Ms Asmat Hussain, Corporate Director for Governance said information relating to attendance on Constitution changes could be provided to Cllr Francis, but attendance statistics were reported to the Standards Advisory Committee. She said in the current circumstances, alternative delivery methods were also being looked at to increase member and officer participation.
- ACTION: Mr Matthew Mannion, Head of Democratic Services to confirm the number of Member attendees on the constitution changes training sessions.
- Councillor Francis also enquired who had given advice in relation to the Key Decisions threshold and what assurances had been provided. He requested some feedback be provided on this issue. Mr Rock said he would provide Councillor Francis with this information in due course.
- ACTION: Mr Rock, Head of Internal Audit, Fraud and Risk to provide Councillor Francis with the information sought, regarding the advice provided for the threshold limit for Key Decisions.
- Councillor Wood commended the work of the Anti-Fraud Team and said the work of the Team should be publicised to deter others. For example, the twenty ‘Right to Buy’ applications that were investigated. Mr Rock responded saying the best deterrent is advertising the work of the team as this adds real value. He said he would look at advertising the good news stories subject to financial constraints.
- Councillor Perry enquired if an update had been provided regarding ‘Client Monitoring of Fire Safety in Residential Dwellings.’ Mr Rock confirmed Ms Karen Swift, Divisional Director for Housing had attended the Audit Committee meeting of 30th January 2020 and had updated members.
- ACTION: Members requested Mr Rock to obtain a further update in relation to Fire Safety in residential dwellings and asked this be circulated to them via email.
The Audit Committee RESOVLED to:
- Note the contents of the report and the overall progress and assurance provided, as well as the findings/assurance of individua reports.
- Note the Protocol for Collaborative working with Barts Health NHS Trust.
Supporting documents:
- Internal Audit and Anti-Fraud Progress Report, item 5.3 PDF 505 KB
- Enc. 1 for Internal Audit and Anti-Fraud Progress Report, item 5.3 PDF 205 KB
- Enc. 2 for Internal Audit and Anti-Fraud Progress Report, item 5.3 PDF 145 KB
- Enc. 3 for Internal Audit and Anti-Fraud Progress Report, item 5.3 PDF 257 KB