Mr David Dobbs, Head of Internal Audit, Anti-Fraud and Risk referred to the supplementary agenda and stated the report provided the Annual Audit Opinion of the Head of Internal Audit and had been produced in accordance with the Public Sector Internal Audit Standards. Mr Dobbs said the opinion supported the governance conclusions included in the Annual Governance Statement, which formed the Statement of Accounts required under the Accounts and Audits Regulations 2015.

Mr Dobbs drew attention to paragraph 2.3 of his report, page 9 of the supplementary agenda and said that he could provide a ‘Limited Assurance’ that the Council had adequate systems of governance, risk management and internal control. Referring to the table at paragraph 3.3 he said the number of audits resulting in reasonable or substantial ratings had fallen. He said from the onset the re-organisation of the Council posed a risk and it was clear this had caused some turbulence.  Mr Dobbs said he would bring a snapshot of how audits over the last 10 to 12 months i.e. 2024-25 had been progressing at the October meeting of the Committee.

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

·       Concern was raised in respect to the ‘advisory’ opinion shown for several audits listed in the table at appendix A. Members were not clear what ‘advisory’ meant and asked for more information to be provided.

·       Mr Dobbs acknowledged the term ‘advisory’ was not helpful to members and said he would do more to ensure the term was used more sparingly for future audits.

·       Mr Dobbs said he regularly reported on substantial and limited assurance audits as part of reports which came to the Committee and invited members to contact him, if they wished to see the fuller reports for any of the audits conducted by his team.

o   ACTION: Mr Dobbs said he would report on the progress of the audits listed in appendix A to the next meeting of the Committee.

·       Referring to the point 34 ‘Contract Management’, page 18 of the supplementary agenda, Members asked why this audit had been cancelled. Mr Dobbs responded stating this was due to a resourcing issue however it had been included in the audit plan for 2024-25.

·       Referring to the paragraph 5.5 ‘Other inspection work’ Councillor Bustin said both the positives and negatives from the inspection reviews ought to be reflected. Mr Dobbs said his wording may be subjective, but it referred to the inspections that had taken place during the reporting year.

·       Referring to paragraph 3.2, bullet point 3 and 22 limited assurances, members asked what had been done to tackle this? Mr Dobbs said these had been raised with the Corporate Leadership Team as well as the Heads of Service concerned. He said the Directorate leadership teams had oversight of the risks and these were regularly reported to the committee, with senior officers questioned on the improvement and/or action plans.

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 2023-24.