Agenda item

The Committee considered the Internal Audit Plan for 2022/23, which had been prepared in line with the requirements of the UK Public Sector Internal Audit Standards. The Plan had been created following a comprehensive review of all risks and controls of Council activities, including partnership activities. The report provided a summary of the 2021/22 Plan and the proposed plan for 2022/23 Municipal year, including a breakdown of the Plan by type of work and assurance and consultancy work by Directorate (excluding ongoing work).

The Head of Internal Audit drew Members’ attention to the items currently on the Plan for each Directorate, as detailed at Section 6 of Appendix A of the report and the Counter Fraud Plan, as detailed in the report appended at Appendix B. Section 7 of the report was also highlighted, which set out the key factors taken into consideration when producing the plan, including, increased allowances for contingency and proactive and reactive work, works associated with Covid-19 grant verification work, and core work needed to discharge internal Audit responsibilities.

In answer to a questions regarding the continuous assurance work in relation to the use of data analytics to strengthen counter fraud activity, the Head of Internal Audit confirmed that this area of work had been included in the Internal Audit Plan for the last 5 years and that continued analytics were currently operating in some areas, as set out in the work plan. The Internal Audit team had expected to make progress in this area during the past year, however due to some members of the Team who were skilled in this area of work being involved in the post assurance checks on the business grants work, less progress has been made than planned. It was anticipated that this area of work would be developed further during the year and that discussions had taken place with data officers within directorates. The Head of Internal Audit emphasised the need to have capacity across the Council to further develop this area of work.  Kathryn Smart spoke of the need to continue to develop this area of work which would provide the Committee with real time assurance throughout the year on the key controls working within the Council.

The Head of Internal Audit confirmed that Doncaster was operating as most progressive Internal Audit teams and had moved to more agile audit planning which was more responsive and had moved away from previous reporting over completion of the Audit Plan. The Assistant Director of Finance added that she had been assured by the positive report following the recent external assessment undertaken of the Internal Audit Team. The Chair endorsed her comments and noted that the Head of Internal Audit had entered into dialogue and had regular discussions with other Heads of Internal Audit Teams, in particular, those in the South Yorkshire region.

The Engagement Lead, Grant Thornton when asked to comment on the Plan, advised the Audit Committee of the key areas for the Committee to focus on when reviewing the Plan and reiterated the need for the Plan to be flexible and agile and to have the ability to change over the year in the event of any emerging risks, and that there was sufficient resources in place to deliver the Plan.

RESOLVED that

(1)       the Committee support the principles and strategy underpinning the 2022/23 Internal Audit Plan, as set out in Section 1 and expanded upon in Section 7 of the Internal Audit Plan report; and

(2)       the Committee consequently support the Plan itself as it stands, as set out in Appendix A, noting the necessity for future and ongoing reviews of the Plan whenever it is appropriate to do so and accordingly to approve the Plan.