Agenda item

The Audit Manager presented the report. He said that this was the sixth-month update against the Internal Audit plan. Appendix 1 contained the Audit Reviews Position Statement as at 30^th September 2016. A summary of performance was contained in section 4.2 of the covering report. The level of unplanned work had been high, and had already used more days than the contingency allocation for the whole of this year, as detailed in 4.2.2.

He gave an update on the Member Allowances audit (4.7.2): all underpayments had now been corrected, and money had been recovered for two of the three overpayments and a payment plan put in place for the third.

He commented on the audit of Council vehicles (4.7.3). Members were surprised by the number of weaknesses identified. A Member noted that the scope of the audit was far wider than just financial issues. The Head of Audit West responded that Internal Audit reviewed many different risks and the controls that were in place to mitigate them. The Chair observed that drivers with the Dial-a-Ride with which he was associated were subject to strict procedures because of the requirements of the Road Traffic Act, and wondered why this did not apply to Council drivers. The Audit Manager replied that it was difficult to monitor whether Council drivers had completed the required procedures each morning in the absence of a formal check list.  Services needed to ensure that these were provided to drivers. A Member noted that a number of the weaknesses identified were quite fundamental to the safe operation of the vehicle fleet, and wondered what explanation services had given for not carrying out fundamental checks. The Audit Manager replied that fleet managers had felt that they lacked the authority to enforce procedures. The Chair said that if someone was killed by a Council vehicle because daily checks had not been done, the Council could be prosecuted for corporate manslaughter. He suggested that staff who did not carry out these checks should be subject to instant dismissal. A Member said there seemed to be evidence of systemic failure and wondered how that could be addressed. The Audit Manager replied that the problem was that there was a lot of documentation relating to vehicle management, but little had been adopted at the corporate level. Services had accepted the recommendations, but corporate weight needed to be put behind them.

The Head of Audit West updated Members on progress with the Audit West partnership. He said that the partnership was now fully integrated and could now offer itself as a single brand to academies and other external bodies. North Somerset was under severe financial pressure and discussions were taking place with them about the consequences of a further reduction in their contract with the partnership. The Divisional Director – Business Support said that the Cabinet and Council had, as part of the 2016/17 budget plan, to give approval to Audit West becoming a stand-alone company to allow it to market its services more effectively, because as part of the Council it was under legal restrictions about the level of commercial activity it could undertake.

RESOLVED to note progress made against the Internal Audit Plan for 2016/17.