Mr Aaron Winter, Interim Head of Internal Audit, Fraud and Risk presented the Annual Internal Audit Report. He said the report stated his opinion as the Head of Internal Audit as per the requirements of the Public Sector Internal Audit standards. Mr Winter said the opinion supported the governance conclusions included in the Annual Governance Statement, which forms part of the Statement of Accounts required under the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015.

Mr Winter explained the factors he took into consideration when giving his opinion and referred members to the summary at paragraph 2.1, on page 81 of the agenda. He said the opinion was based on the outcomes of internal audit and anti-fraud activity undertaken during the year as well as taking account of external peer reviews and the conclusions of the external auditors, relating to the accounts and the Governance Statement.

In response to comments and questions from members the following was noted:

• Mr Winter explained the opinion given was not subjective and was based on a methodology, using the outcome of internal audits to form an opinion. He said the scale used to assess the performance was cited at page 82 which provided definitions and thresholds for each opinion category.
• Referring to the minutes of the previous meeting, Councillor Bustin asked how Mr Winter was ensuring there was no conflict of interest, in the work he was undertaking for the Council. Mr Winter reassured the Committee there was a complete separation of work and said he was not involved in any of the work undertaken by BDO. He said the relationship between the Council and BDO was managed by the Audit Manager, Mr Bharat Mehta and he was not involved with this.
• Mr Winter said they were struggling to recruit to vacant posts within the team, however they would continue with the proposed recruitment, which may include looking at alternative solutions such as apprenticeships, to fill these. He said they had a local person who had recently taken up an apprenticeship role within the team. Mr Nisar Visram added that the recent recruitment to the Head of Internal Audit post had been unsuccessful and as such they were considering other approaches such as soft-market testing.
• Mr Winter confirmed the External Quality Audit was scheduled to take place in Quarter 4, this year.
• Mr Winter said the tool used to update the implementation of recommendations was Directorate trackers in Sharepoint. He said this allowed them to identify recommendations that had slipped or were overdue. He said recommendations were classified as high, medium, and low priority, with all high and medium priority recommendations followed up accordingly.

The Audit Committee RESOLVED to:

1. Note the content and opinion of the Head of Internal Audit as outlined within the Head of Internal Audit Annual Report which includes a summary of the work undertaken during 2021/22.