Issue - meetings

The Committee considered an update report from the Southern Internal Audit Partnership which set out a clear and transparent articulation of internal audit activity, performance, and outcomes during the eleven-month period up to 29 February 2024.

The report had included the status of ‘live’ internal audit reports; an update on progress against the annual audit plan; a summary of internal audit performance, planning and resourcing issues; and a summary of significant issues that would impact on the Chief Internal Auditor’s annual opinion.

Neil Pitman of the Southern Internal Audit Partnership presented the report and drew the Committee’s attention to the summaries of two internal audit reviews that had been finalised since the last progress report was presented to the Committee, which had concluded in limited assurance opinions.

These reviews related to Homes for Ukraine and Accounts receivable and Debt Management.   It was noted that all the management actions raised to mitigate the issues highlighted in the Homes to Ukraine report had since been fully implemented.  There were eight management actions in place to address the issues raised in respect of the Accounts Receivable and Debt Management review, although these had not yet reached their implementation date.

As requested by the Committee at an earlier meeting, further update information had been provided in the report in respect of the overdue management actions.

During the debate, the following points were raised by the Committee:

• Concerns in respect of:

(a)  the overdue high priority management action relation to the Budgetary Control review; in that regard the interim Joint Strategic Director of Finance confirmed that progress was being made on this and that he would circulate a written update to the Committee;

(b)  the lack of any update in respect of the management actions associated with the S106 Contributions review, particularly with regard to updating policies and procedure documents.  The relevant officers would be asked to provide a written response to this concern to the Committee.

(c)   lack of progress with the review of the Corporate Business Continuity Plan and query as to whether this ought to be of a significantly higher priority.

(d)  Eleven-month slippage in finalising the job evaluation process in respect of the Programme Manager post which has prevented recruitment to that role (Redevelopment Projects review), and query as to whether, in light of the delay, the post was actually needed.

• Concerns over the lack of information in respect of the nature of the management actions arising from the Accounts Receivable and Debt Management review.  In response, the interim Joint Strategic Director of Finance agreed to circulate to the Committee a written update on progress with implementation of these actions.
• In relation to the Accounts Receivable and Debt Management review, concerns that:

(a)  32 out of 55 debts being tested were not being actively recovered, and that the impact of overdue debt at the end of the financial year would give rise to a bad debt calculation that would impact on the General Fund revenue account. In response, the interim Joint  ...  view the full minutes text for item 74

The Committee considered an update report from the Southern Internal Audit Partnership which set out a clear and transparent articulation of internal audit activity, performance, and outcomes during the eight-month period up to 30 November 2023.

The report had included the status of ‘live’ internal audit reports; an update on progress against the annual audit plan; a summary of internal audit performance, planning and resourcing issues; and a summary of significant issues that would impact on the Chief Internal Auditor’s annual opinion.

Iona Bond of the Southern Internal Audit Partnership presented the report and drew the Committee’s attention to the revised presentation of the table showing Stakeholder Satisfaction Survey Results as requested at the last meeting.

The Committee’s attention was also drawn to the reference to the KPMG review of Performance Monitoring in the table of “live” audit reviews, which had been included in error as all the management actions had been completed.

The Committee noted that since the last report, two audit reviews had been undertaken - on procurement and information governance both of which had concluded with a “reasonable” assurance opinion, with a number of management actions none of which were due at the time the report had been produced.

In relation to the rolling work programme (section 7 of the report), the Committee were informed that all of the scheduled Q.3 work was currently in progress.  The internal auditor had also finalised three further audit reports which would be considered at the next meeting.

In relation to Annex 1 to the report (overdue “high priority” management actions), the internal auditor reported that, since the last Committee meeting, there was only one overdue management action (on budgetary control) that had reached its revised implementation date and to note that the implementation date had moved again. The second overdue recommendation on the payroll budget discrepancy had not yet been followed up because the revised target date had been 30 December 2023.  This would be updated in the next progress report.

In relation to Annex 2 (overdue “low to medium priority” management actions), it was noted that, whilst there had not been any significant changes,  because most of the revised target implementation dates had not yet been, there were two exceptions namely Core Financial Controls - Journals, and Core Financial Controls - General Ledger, each of which had medium priority recommendations where the due dates had slipped for a further two months.  The Internal Auditor emphasised, however, that work was ongoing in respect of these overdue management actions on these individual audit reviews, but they were all integral to the wider work streams associated with the financial recovery plan.

The Internal Auditor noted that, at the last meeting of the Committee, a request had been made to provide additional information on the overdue low and medium priority management actions and explained that this had not yet been addressed partly due to the limited time available between committee meetings.  It was hoped that this information could be provided at the next  ...  view the full minutes text for item 59

The Committee considered the first internal audit progress report for 2023-24 from the Council’s new internal auditors, Southern Internal Audit Partnership.  The report summarised progress with the “live” audit which were defined as any audit reviews that resulted in management actions being raised and where those management actions were either not yet due or were overdue, and whether those overdue actions were low, medium, or high priority. 

In response to a question in the debate regarding the nature of the “resource pressures” referred to in Annex 1 to the report “Overdue High Priority Management Actions”, the internal auditor reported that the reason for the management actions being overdue was that the responsible officer had been on leave and had not been able to provide an update in time to report this to the Committee.

Having considered the report, the Committee

RESOLVED: That the progress made against the internal audit plan for 2023-24, as detailed in the report submitted to the Committee, be noted.