Issue - meetings

The Committee considered a report on progress made by the Council’s internal audit manager (KPMG) on their internal audit plan for 2021-22 for the period April to July 2021, which included a summary of the work that they had concluded since the previous report to Committee and what they had planned to do ahead of the next.  The report also provided a summary of three performance reporting reviews which examined data quality, in terms of the consideration of the completeness, accuracy, and reliability of the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that were reported and used for decision making purposes at the Council. 

The Committee noted that in 2020-21, when this area was looked at previously, KPMG had issued an amber/red rated report.  This year, there had been a positive direction of travel as demonstrated by the overall amber/green rating of assurance.  In completing this work, KPMG had looked at three KPIs that were included within the Corporate Performance Monitoring Report namely, staff turnover, average time to let void properties, and council tax collected.   KPMG had identified no significant issues through the Audit and had agreed a number of management actions, three of which were graded amber and one graded green, which related to enhanced quality assurance procedures, data security, and clarification of some of the definitions used for the KPIs.

In debating this item, the Committee raised the following points:

·       In response to a question as to whether KPMG should report to the Committee on progress with the internal audit plan more frequently, KPMG noted that the reason for the two-stage approach rather than anything more frequently through the year in terms of following up on the recommendations was that the deadlines for implementation tended to coalesce around the financial year end. 

·       It was noted that CIPFA guidance on audit committees in local government had recommended that to discharge their responsibilities effectively, such committees should, inter alia, be able to meet privately and separately with the external auditor and with the head of internal audit.  The Council’s external and internal auditors both confirmed that they would be happy to meet privately with the Committee.

·       In response to a question regarding the monitoring of information on void properties using paper-based t cards, and the action the Council was taking to address the auditor’s findings, the Director of Resources indicated that she would find out and circulate a response to the Committee.

The Committee

RESOLVED: That the internal auditor’s progress against their 2021-22 internal audit plan, together with the key findings from the reviews undertaken, be noted.

Reason:

To ensure good governance arrangements and internal control by undertaking an adequate level of audit coverage.