Issue - meetings
Internal Audit and Anti-Fraud Progress Report
Meeting: 01/12/2021 - Audit Committee (Item 4)
4 Internal Audit and Anti-Fraud Progress Report PDF 472 KB
Additional documents:
- Appendix. 1 for Internal Audit and Anti-Fraud Progress Report Q3, item 4 PDF 296 KB
- Appendix. 2 for Internal Audit and Anti-Fraud Progress Report Q3, item 4 PDF 300 KB
- Webcast for Internal Audit and Anti-Fraud Progress Report
Minutes:
Mr Paul Rock, Head of Internal Audit, Fraud and Risk stated the report provided members with an update on the progress made against the delivery of the 2021/22 Annual Audit Plan and highlighted any significant issues since the last report to the Audit Committee in October 2021. An update on anti-fraud activity was also included in the report.
Mr Rock said progress had been slower this quarter largely due to the resources available. He said he hoped to have a new member of staff start in the New Year but in the meantime would be using BDO – their external auditor partner to undertake some of the audits as per the audit plan. Mr Rock said he was ‘on course’ to deliver 30 audits this year, as he had done for the past two years and that this would provide enough evidence from him to base his annual opinion on.
In respect to management responses to reports these had been slow and as such Mr Rock had raised this with the Corporate Leadership Team. He said the fully implemented, higher priority actions were at 35% and whilst the overall percentage is 80-85%, if the partially implemented high priority areas are also included, this figure needed to improve.
He said the Fraud outcomes continued to be on a positive trajectory, with a further conviction secured for housing fraud. Mr Rock also referred members to paragraph 3.27 and said changes had been implemented in respect to how information is managed from informants. In respect to the second action relating to how information is shared, Mr Rock said he would report back in March 2022 once he has discussed and formed a view on this.
In response to questions and comments from members the following was noted:
- The Chair Councillor Whitehead said it was disappointing the actions agreed with management were at 35%. She said as these were agreed actions, she would expect management to actively look to implement them as soon as possible.
- In relation to the NFI, and data matches the Chair asked if this related to the resources issue, within the team? Mr Rock said his team co-ordinated the NFI matches on behalf of the Council. However, it was for individual officers/managers to best manage the risk, within the resources they have. Mr Rock said there was no doubt there was a resourcing challenge when it came to reviewing over 11,000 matches.
- Referring to the Audit Plan 2021/22, page 105 and the audit relating to ‘Climate Change’, the Chair requested this audit be pushed back to the ‘green’ list as it was an important topic to audit and scrutinise. Councillors Perry and Khan agreed with this. Councillor Khan added that an equalities impact assessment on how Climate Change affects BAME communities should also be included.
- Mr Rock agreed to adding the ‘Climate Change’ audit back on the plan and said the information provided in the workplan was a high-level outline for the audit. He said the audit would be scoped ... view the full minutes text for item 4