Issue - meetings
Head of Internal Audit Annual Report 2020-2021
Meeting: 29/07/2021 - Audit Committee (Item 5)
5 Head of Internal Audit Annual Report 2020-2021 PDF 234 KB
Additional documents:
- Appendix. 1 for Head of Internal Audit Annual Report 2020-2021, item 5 PDF 764 KB
- Webcast for Head of Internal Audit Annual Report 2020-2021
Minutes:
Mr Paul Rock, Head of Internal Audit, Anti-Fraud and Risk stated the report provided Members with the annual audit opinion of the Head of Internal Audit in accordance with the requirements of the Public Sector Internal Audit Standards. The opinion supports the governance conclusions included within the Annual Governance Statement, which forms part of the statement of accounts required under the Accounts and Audits Regulations 2015.
Mr Rock said on the balance of internal audit work and the significant issues with the statement of accounts for the last two years, a limited opinion had been given. Mr Rock said there had been areas of improvement with better management responsiveness to the implementing of agreed management actions. He said the culture of risk maturity had improved over the year and this has been highlighted by the pandemic especially the work of Gold and Silver command, who have embraced risk management.
Mr Rock continued stating there had been a good positive outcome from the investors in people assessment and that he’d been able to use that to inform his opinion. He said none of the assurances given had achieved a ‘no assurance’ rating which the Council had achieved for the third consecutive year. He said since the changes made to the grading system, ‘substantial’ assurance had been achieved by Treasury Management. Mr Rock said there had been several successes over the last quarter and he hoped that by next year’s opinion, the Council would be moving towards a reasonable assessment.
Lastly, Mr Rock thanked his team for their hard work especially during the pandemic and said the perception survey demonstrated that Internal Audit was adding value despite the challenging circumstances.
In response to questions and comments from Members the following was noted:
- The Chair on behalf of the Audit Committee acknowledged the work the Internal Audit Team and said the work undertaken helped the Council make improvements to services provided by the Council.
- In response to what key things had to change in order for a better annual opinion, Mr Rock said it would be a balance of reasonable and substantial assurances. He said this would be his baseline plus assurances from other sources, such as OfSted, CQC and Health & Safety Executive. He said the statement of accounts also needed to be resolved in order to improve the opinion given.
- Councillor Wood agreed with the ‘Limited’ opinion and said table 2, on page 122 of the agenda clearly showed why such an opinion had been given.
- Referring to Table 2, page 128 of the agenda, Mr Rock clarified the actions agreed with management were actions and recommendations raised and followed up by Internal Audit. He said high priority actions were always followed through by the Internal Audit team whereas medium priority actions were followed up based on risk and professional judgement, low priority actions were not normally followed up and instead internal audit relied on updates from management. . He said management were required to complete a self-assessment and based on the ... view the full minutes text for item 5