The Director of Finance and IT will submit Document “R” which monitors the progress made by Internal Audit against the Internal Audit Plan for 2021/22.

Recommended -

(1)  That the anticipated coverage and changes of Internal Audit work during the year be endorsed.

(2)  That Internal Audit be requested to monitor the control environment, risk management and governance arrangements and continues to assess areas of control weakness and the ability of management to deliver improvements to the control environment when required.

(Mark St Romaine – 01274 432888)

The Director of Finance and IT submitted Document “R” which monitors the progress made by Internal Audit against the Internal Audit Plan for 2021/22.

The Officer presented the monitoring report for the Internal Audit Plan which

covered the following point:

·         Audit Resources

·         Audit Coverage

·         Control Environment

·         Follow up of Audit Recommendations

·         Summary of Audit Reports and Findings

·         Annual Assurance Process

·         Overall Audit Opinion

·         Prioritisation of Internal Audit Coverage in 2022/23

·         Internal Audit’s Performance Indicators

·         Internal Audit Quality Assurance Improvement Plan

It was reported that during the first half of the year, five audit reports were issued relating to fundamental systems, which had an audit opinion of Excellent or Good and five reports relating to significant systems were issued, four of which had audit opinions which ranged from Effective to Partially Effective. A summary of this was provided in the report.

Members raised questions as follows;

Referring to recommendations on page 9 of the report, Members asked if there were any recommendations that still needed to be implemented and if there were any implications.

The Officer reported that in total 125 recommendations from 39 reports were included in the follow up process representing all agreed high priority recommendations included in reports up to 31 March 2022. The follow up process found that 57% of the recommendations had been fully implemented as agreed with a further 37% were partially implemented.

The Chair commented that it was good to see that most recommendations had been implemented.

Referring to Audit Reports and Findings, Members were keen to understand the use of purchase cards.

It was reported by the Officer that key concerns have been identified in the audit for purchasing card cost centres for some staff are incorrect as they had not been updated when staff have moved between residential homes. This has had an impact on the integrity of the spend, lack of procedures or guidance governing what is acceptable spend by residential home staff and approval of purchasing card transactions not being made in a timely manner. Going forward this will be closely monitored and there would be more control on use of cards ensuring good use of them.

Members stressed that this issue needed to be raised with the correct people and there needed to be more traceability with the use of purchase cards.

Members wanted to know what the anticipated target level due to staff being diverted elsewhere and due to loss of resources, the effect it would have should it continue into next year.

The Officer reported that a business case has been submitted for more resources and currently have a trainee focused on re arranging managerial duties. The net impact of the Audit Manager leaving and the delay in filling vacancies is that audit resources in 2022/23 would be less than planned for by approximately 12%. Members were informed that a resource positioning exercise was currently underway, Members were also advised that there would always be some inconsistencies but were in a better position than before.

Members wanted to know how progress would be monitored.

Members were advised that another report would be produced in 6 months and progress could be monitored by comparing findings. It was reported that there were more resources than there were 3 years ago and progress could be monitored.

Resolved -

(1)  That the anticipated coverage and changes of Internal Audit work during the year be endorsed.

(2)  That Internal Audit be requested to monitor the control environment, risk management and governance arrangements and continues to assess areas of control weakness and the ability of management to deliver improvements to the control environment when required.

ACTION: Director of Finance and IT