Agenda item
Head of Internal Audit Annual Report 2020-2021
- Meeting of Audit Committee, Thursday, 29th July, 2021 6.30 p.m. (Item 5.4)
- View the background to item 5.4
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 evaluations, the Internal Audit Team were required to test and check if actions had been effectively implemented.
The Chair thanked Mr Rock for his report before inviting the Officers to address their individual reports which had received ‘limited’ assurance following Internal Audit’s assessments.
Grouped Schools PFI – Contract Monitoring
Mr James Thomas, Corporate Director for Children and Culture stated the audit report was helpful, as it identified the weaknesses in contract management. He said he had asked Internal Audit to widen its remit and to look at finance issues. He said they accepted the recommendations made by the audit team and would be working to implement these.
Members then heard from Mr Terry Bryan, from Pupil Services and Mr Ben Jeffrey, the Senior PFI Client Officer. Mr Bryan provided a detailed update on how each of the recommendations were being taken forward. Mr Jeffrey added that some of the delays such as the Health and Safety recommendations identified were complex in that schools required assessments by their Facility Management Teams. He said the Council was working with the PFI contractors to ensure the early resolution of these concerns.
Members of the Committee had no questions for Mr Bryan and Mr Jeffrey.
Place Directorate Level Governance
Ms Ann Sutcliffe, Corporate Director for Place said her Directorate was a pilot for looking at governance and decision-making arrangements, within the Directorate. She said most of the recommendations made by Internal Audit had either been implemented or in the process of being implemented, with timed responses to each.
Mr Rock confirmed the Directorate was a pilot and said Internal Audit were planning to do the same with each other Directorate. He said he wanted to be able to provide the Committee with an assurance that the governance arrangements from the top follow through to each Directorate. He said some of the recommendation made were in relation to how the DLT’s interact with CLT.
In response to questions and comments the following was noted:
- Councillor Wood commented that the Overview and Scrutiny Committee (OSC) were looking at the Saville’s report and how £1.7M of the HRA would be spent over the next 30 years. He said the OSC had some concerns about how the process would work and said the findings of that report were relevant to the findings of this report.
The Audit Committee RESOLVED to:
- 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 2020/21.
Supporting documents:
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Head of Internal Audit Annual Report 2020-2021, item 5.4
PDF 234 KB
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Appendix. 1 for Head of Internal Audit Annual Report 2020-2021, item 5.4
PDF 764 KB