Agenda item

(Chief Internal Auditor) To consider the attached report (AGC-023-2016/17).

The Senior Internal Auditor presented the Internal Audit Monitoring Report for the period February to March 2017.

The Senior Internal Auditor advised the Committee that two reports had been issued since the previous meeting – Grants to Voluntary Organisations and IT Disaster Recovery – both of which had been awarded substantial assurance. In addition, the Committee was requested to approve the deferral of a further two audits in the 2016/17 Audit Plan to 2017/18, but it was emphasised that there would still be sufficient coverage through the remaining audits for the Chief Internal Auditor to give their annual opinion for 2016/17. The audits requested for deferral were Safeguarding and Joint Working – Community Safety.

The Senior Internal Auditor reported that the Recommendation Tracker contained one recommendation which had passed its target date, regarding the review of the Sundry Income and Debt Policy. As reported earlier in the meeting, the recommendation for Grounds Maintenance concerning staff resilience had now been completed, following the recruitment of a replacement Finance & Technical Officer.

The Senior Internal Auditor highlighted that the Corporate Fraud Team was continuing to focus on Right-to-Buy applications received by the Council, and a further two applications had been stopped or withdrawn; one property had been recovered as a result of fraud intervention. The Team was currently engaged in three prosecutions, and work had commenced on this year’s “Know a Cheat in your Street” anti-fraud campaign; leaflets would be distributed with this year’s Council Tax and Business Rates demands. Further work had also been undertaken on this year’s National Fraud Initiative. The Internal Audit Service continued to be represented on a number of business groups and project teams, including: Programme & Project Management; Corporate & Business Planning; Electronic Invoicing; Information Management; and Personal Data for the new Payroll/HR system.

The Senior Internal Auditor informed the Committee that the Internal Audit Charter was reviewed on an annual basis to ensure it remained current and relevant, and the last review had been presented to the Committee in November 2015. It had been previously agreed to defer the review in 2016 until after the External Quality Assessment had been undertaken. This had now been completed, and the Internal Audit Charter was reviewed as part of this exercise where no deficiencies or enhancements were identified by the Assessor. Therefore, it was proposed for the Committee to approve the Charter unchanged – save for the date on the front.

The Senior Internal Auditor stated that the Shared Service with Broxbourne Borough and Harlow District Councils was still due to commence on 1 April 2017, with all Officers coming under the employ of Broxbourne Borough Council. A Shared Services Board had been created to manage the service, and its inaugural meeting had been held on 13 February 2017. The Committee were reminded that the recent External Quality Assessment had concluded that each of the three Councils received an effective and efficient service.

In respect of the potential deferral of two audits to the Audit Plan for 2017/18, the Chief Internal Auditor stated that the team had performed additional unplanned audit work during this year, and hence there was a need to defer the two audits as requested.

Resolved:

(1)        That the progress made both against the Internal Audit Plan for 2016/17 and by the Corporate Fraud Team be noted; and

(2)        That the following audits in the Internal Audit Plan for 2016/17 be deferred to 2017/18:

            (a)        Safeguarding; and

            (b)        Joint Working – Community Safety.