Agenda item

Members are asked to note the report on the Internal Audit Workplan 2014/2015.

The Audit Manager presented the report which showed the Internal Audit activity for the second half of 2014/2015 against the Strategic Audit Plan.

Members were advised that the Strategic Audit Plan 2014/2015, endorsed by the Audit and Risk  Committee on 25 February 2014, set out the work Internal Audit expected to carry out during the year.

The Committee was informed that on completion of each audit a formal report was issued to the relevant line managers, the Executive Director and Portfolio Holders.  It was noted that copies were also sent to the Chief Executive, Assistant Director and the External Auditors, Ernst and Young.  The report contained an action plan, with target dates, that had been agreed with the managers to address the observations and recommendations raised by Internal Audit.  This formed the basis of the follow-up audit, which was carried out approximately six months later to assess progress in implementing the agreed actions.

The Audit Manager provided an overview of the audits which had been completed during the last quarter and reports issued detailed at section 2.2 of the report.  Members were informed that a summary of the reports was attached at Appendix 1 and the full versions were available under the relevant year for the Audit and Risk Committee to view on InSite.  Details of how to access InSite and view the documents would be emailed to the Committee.

The Committee was advised that the following audits were ongoing at the end of the year and would be reported to members in the next progress report:

·        Payroll.

·        Council Tax.

·        Leisure Services.

·        General Ledger.

The Audit Manager provided an overview of the other work carried out as follows:

·        Annual review of the processes to compile the Annual Governance Statement.

·        Reviewing the data matches returned for the latest National Fraud Initiative exercise.

·        Producing a summary of the leisure trust arrangements.

·        Creation of an Assurance Framework and supporting risk assessments to use in compiling the Strategic Audit Plan.

The Committee was advised of the changes to the Audit Pan as set out in section 2.5 of the report.

In conclusion, the Audit Manager explained that the progress against the plan had been less satisfactory than usual due to the exceptional circumstances during 2014/2015.  The Planned work would be completed, albeit late, and would feed into the Audit Plan for 2015/2016.  Sufficient work had been completed on which the Audit Manager could base an opinion on the systems of internal control as required in the Annual Audit Report and the Annual Governance Statement.

Councillor Devereux commented that the Internal Audit Plan was dominated by financial considerations and asked what were the full set of external requirements and accreditations that the Council must comply with to enable it to provide assurance to its stakeholders that it was operating effectively, for example, health and safety, quality, security, software, etc.  In response the Audit Manager advised that there were external requirements, etc and that when Health and Safety and IT audits were undertaken, specialist advice was bought in to carry out the work.  It was explained that the In House Team undertook quality control for risk assessments. 

The Chairman, Councillor Humphrey commented that the Committee monitored the progress made against the Internal Audit Plan over the three years.

The Assistant Director informed Members that some external checks were undertaken and gave an example of purchase cards.  She advised that when required specialist advice was purchased.

The Chairman, Councillor Humphrey referred to page 7 – Property Services, Asbestos Management and asked for an explanation as to why the overall opinion was given Limited Assurance.  In response, the Audit Manager explained that this area of work had been given limited assurance because at the time of the audit there was no officer had been appointed at senior management level for this area of work.  New software was being sourced to record the results of the new asbestos survey.  The Assistant Director added that a tender exercise had recently being undertaken for the Asbestos Survey work.

RESOLVED:  Members noted the report on the Internal Audit  Work Plan 2014/2015.