Agenda item

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The Senior Internal Auditor present the Annual Internal Audit Follow Up Progress Report.  

The Senior Internal Auditor highlight to the Committee this was a regular report and provided an update on Internal Audit recommendations and Management response to the recommendations along with the agreed deadlines. 

The Senior Internal Auditor advised the report included an overview of the status on the progress being made against all Internal Audit recommendations as of 2nd May 2024. He confirmed there was 120 recommendations, 80 of which was overdue the agreed due date included 8 of high priority and 29 medium priorities.

Councillor Bearshaw sought clarification on how the outstanding recommendations were being prioritised by high priority rather than time.

The Senior Internal Auditor confirmed the high priority recommendation would be prioritised first. 

The Chair expressed concern that due to the number and time of outstanding recommendations that the Audit Committee was failing at their role. 

Councillor de Winton endorsed the Chairs comments and referred to page five of the report which related to car parking. He commented the surprise of this recommendation due to it being an income source for the Borough Council. 

The Senior Internal Auditor referred further to the report and the Transport Strategy. He confirmed the consultation has taken time and a draft of the strategy is to be reviewed however the deadline was not met. 

The Assistant Director, Resources confirmed further the recommendation was outstanding due to there being no car park strategy in place to make effective and informed decisions. 

The Chair commented further action by Management is needed and a motion needed to be put in place for this recommendation to be followed up by Management.  

The Senior Internal Auditor confirmed to the Committee follow up activities are being encouraged for the recommendations to be actioned.

The Assistant Director, Resources highlighted to the Committee that discussions had taken place around the Audit process and approach and drew the Committee attention to the 3.3 of the report. She highlighted 30% of recommendations had been dealt with and there was a significant number of low recommendations. She confirmed to the Committee discussions had taken place to ensure the recommendations are more effective and if the low recommendations should be considered as advisories.  She also confirmed the recommendations were being looked at to be condensed to have one recommendation which included a number of sub actions. She highlighted to the Committee this report had been discussed at a recent Senior Leadership Team meeting.

Councillor de Winton sought clarification from Officers on when further action was going to be taken.

The Senior Internal Auditor responded to the Assistant Director, Resources commented that the audit team were working towards recommendation prioritisation, identifying risks and feeding off the risk the recommendations making sure that the risk are appropriate to the recommendation making the risk and action clearer to Officers and reduce the overall number of recommendations. He added Senior Leadership Team are being asked for updates on the progress of the recommendations and confirmed to the Committee they were able to contact Officer directly for responses on the recommendations which had been overdue for a period of time.

Councillor Bearshaw recommended to Officers that these recommendations were turned into SMART actions before the next Audit Committee. He further commented that the relevant Officers with outstanding recommendations to attend the next Audit Committee.

Councillor Long suggested to the Committee that the Committee recommended that the Officers with overdue recommendations would go to the Corporate Performance Panel to be scrutinised.

The Chair highlighted that the Audit Committee were there to highlight risk and therefore as this had become a scrutiny matter, he endorsed this recommendation to Corporate Performance Panel.

Councillor de Winton proposed that Officers responsible for these overdue recommendations to come to the Audit Committee and encourage these recommendations to be actioned.

Councillor Long proposed with advice from the Monitoring Officer and referring to the Constitution if this would be the role of Corporate Performance Panel or the Audit Committee to invite relevant Officers with overdue recommendations from the Internal Audit.

Councillor Nash endorsed Councillor Long suggestion and seconded the motion. 

RECOMMENDATION: The Audit Committee consult the Monitoring Officer regarding the Constitution if Corporate Performance Panel or Audit Committee be the appropriate body to invite relevant Officers with long standing and overdue recommendations from Internal Audit to their meeting.