Agenda item

The Head of Internal Audit introduced the report and noted the progress against internal audit recommendations and work completed to date on the Internal Audit & Corporate Anti-Fraud Team (CAFT) Plan 2021/22 and high and medium priority internal audit recommendations.

Members heard of the work that had been undertaken during Q1 and therefore the appendix to the Officers report was noted.  

Members had the opportunity to ask questions and in doing so Councillor Alex Prager requested to understand the slippage on access agreements for admitted bodies.  The Assistant Director of Finance responded to these points and stated that he would write to Councillor Prager once he had spoken to the team.  In responding to a question the Director of Assurance noted that all the Audit Committee reports are reviewed and considered by the Council’s Senior Management Team in advance of the committee meetings.   She added that the slippage is monitored and therefore action plans had been put in place for the highways and pensions issues that had been noted.  She added that she would take these points away and look at how this can be addressed in a better way.

Councillor Anne Hutton noted that improvements had been made to pensions but she raised concerns and requested to know why CIL payments were not being made.  She questioned also if the land charge changes within the report would lead to data quality improvements.  

Councillor Arjun Mittra noted that some items didn’t contain follow up target dates.   The Head of Internal Audit assured Members that there are target dates and this point would be reviewed.    Councillor Mittra also made comments in regards to how generous deadlines were and he made further remarks in respect to CIL payments.    

Councillor Arjun Mittra said that the report outlined credit notes that were reviewed as part of the Grant Thornton review.   He requested to know why this wasn’t part of normal procedures.   The Assistant Director of Finance said that a number of personnel changes had been made.   He went on to say credit notes are transactions that are processed by the Council and he stated that he was confident that the team would improve this in the coming months.   Councillor Mittra asked why Officers have not attended training sessions, he said that this should be monitored so that Officers are trained appropriately.   The Head of Internal Audit said that training was a priority and assured Members that this was monitored.

Councillor Laithe Jajeh spoke in support of the comments that Members had made, he further asked about Accounts Receivable and how the unallocated credit notes process worked if it wasn’t possible to allocate them.  The Head of Internal Audit said work had been carried out and therefore she would look into this matter. 

Councillor Alison Moore requested robust systems to ensure the Council was operating well.  She added that there were reoccurring themes that concerned her and gave some examples to support her comments. She added that the quality of data was very important and therefore she was concerned that proper processes were not being followed correctly and improvements are not therefore being made as quickly as possible.

Independent Member Geraldine Chadwick requested the views of the Head of Internal Audit in regards to Land Charges.  Members heard in response the work around this point and it was agreed that if the work is to be completed then this shouldn’t feature in future reporting until those revised deadlines have passed.

Having Considered the report the Audit Committee:

Resolved

1. That the Committee noted the work completed to date on Internal Audit Q1 progress report - 1 st April to 30th June 2021.

2. That the Committee approved the updated Internal Audit Charter.