Issue - meetings

Internal Audit Progress Report

Meeting: 10/11/2021 - Audit and Governance Committee (Item 26)

26 Internal Audit 2021-22 Update Report pdf icon PDF 119 KB

Additional documents:

Decision:

RESOLVED: The Committee noted the report.

Minutes:

At the Chair’s invitation the Executive Director of Finance introduced the report on behalf of the Chief Internal Officer who had sent his apologies. Section 2 of the report gave the audit progress to date, it was advised that there were 69 audits planned, 30 already completed, 12 in the final draft stage and 18 in progress. The report discussed the audit shortfall, various options had been discussed, the Section 151 Officer would be considering these options. Page 26 had advised that the first 3 audits undertaken had been carried over from the previous authorities.

 

Councillors made the following comments.

·         It was noted that 25% of potential fraud discovered was real, what could the council do to help with this going forward.

·         It was queried how the council would address the resource problem that had been mentioned in section 7.1.

·         The 625-audit day shortfall was noted, what would the council do to address the shortfall.

·         How many full, part time and agency staff the council had was queried.

·         Had the audit shortfall anything to do with lack of response from relevant departments or officers.

·         It was queried whether the likelihood of fraud would increase when bringing the fraud department in-house, specifically the transition stage.

·         Had the amount of known fraud been what was expected.

·         The report had discussed legacy debt, would this work be completed.

 

The Chair made the following comments.

  • Similar pressures regarding resources had occurred throughout all local authorities.
  • The committee’s remit would be limited to what was open to the internal auditors.

 

The Executive Director of Finance made the following comments.

  • The council would have its own dedicated fraud team when the service comes back in house.
  • There would be a separate proposal to highlight the resource shortfall. The options available were, to buy in more Audit resources, to not proceed with some lower risk audits or to carry forward some audits into the following year. The committee was advised that it could also be a combination of all the options.
  • With regards to productivity, the target for the council was 90%.
  • It was noted that there was a shortfall in staffing levels within Internal Audit, some contracts that had been in place in the previous councils had been stopped.
  • Staffing levels had been noted in the risk register.
  • Any legacy debt should not impact the base budget.