Agenda item

The Committee considered a report, presented by Peter Jackson, Head of Internal Audit, which provided information on the work of Internal Audit during 2022/23, as set out at Appendix 1 of the report, including the Head of Internal Audit’s overall opinion on the adequacy and effectiveness of the Council’s governance, risk management and control arrangements. The report also supported the annual review of the Council’s arrangements and the subsequent preparation and publication of an Annual Governance Statement.

The Head of Internal Audit outlined the key points in the report, highlighting that there were low levels of overdue management actions and no particular areas of concern had been identified. He reported that he was satisfied with the Council’s governance, risk management and control arrangements, which were adequate and operated effectively during the year. Internal Audit’s work this year had not identified any particular serious areas of concern or services to be considered for inclusion in the Council’s Annual Governance Statement.

In answer to a question from the Chair, it was noted that the large number of overdue management actions relating to school audits had not been included within the mainstream management action figures of the Authority, as the figures would be distorted. This was due to the risk levels relating to individual schools and the audits undertaken had resulted in a large number of actions as was the nature of these audits. Internal Audit were working with Head teachers and School Governors at the schools to agree the management actions.  Internal Audit had met with the new Head of Service who oversees all schools with regard to the processes in place to escalate implementation of the overdue actions and it was hoped that the numbers would be reduced in future. 

The Vice-Chair welcomed the reduction in the number of overdue management actions, in particular, noting the positive results relating to high-risk level management actions, and in view of this asked whether Internal Audit should adopt a more agile approach in the future with regard to the audits. The Head of Internal Audit confirmed that Internal Audit endeavoured to adopt such an approach with less coverage given to assurance audits.  Internal Audit were currently recruiting new staff to expand data analysis capacity within the team to increase the amount of data driven work so that real-time assurance is generated from the systems.  In addition, work was also being undertaken in the Children Young People and Families directorate for Internal Audit to oversee the arrangements in place in relation to the Dedicated Schools Grant to ensure that preventative measures are in place. It was further reported that the Internal Audit risk based plan would direct resources into those areas where value can be most added. Audit software systems were also being developed to provide detailed assessments of audits and going forward would generate heat maps as seen in the Counter Fraud Plan, mapping out risks to cover all directorates across the Council.

RESOLVED to

(1)       note that the Internal Audit Annual Report for 2022/23, including confirmation that the Council’s governance, risk management and control arrangements were adequate and operated effectively during the year and

(2)       note that the Head of Internal Audit’s self-assessment that the service is compliant with the Public Sector Internal Audit Standards, maintaining the outcome from the External Quality Assessment carried out during the 2021/22 year, which confirmed the highest level of conformance with the relevant Public Sector Internal Audit Standards.