Agenda item

Andy Cox presented the report.  He referred back to the Committee meeting in July when the impact of Covid-19 on the 2020/21 Audit Plan was discussed.  He reported there was further impact due to the ongoing response and outlined the reasons for this. 

He explained that the unplanned work - support to small businesses, discretionary grants, adult care provider relief, advice to passenger services and review of PPE stocks - had a significant impact on the completion of planned work.  This added up to 151 days of unplanned work.  It was therefore proposed that the number of reviews within the Internal Audit Plan be reduced. The basis for selecting audits to be dropped from the 2020/21 Plan was based on: the risk assessment score allocated during the Audit Planning process; consultation with management and taking into account other internal / external reviews.  He added that further changes to the Plan might be necessary.

He commented that all audits were being carried out remotely and this impacted on both the time taken to complete audits and the effectiveness of audit testing and the level of assurance that could be provided.

It had been agreed that any audit reviews with a ‘Poor / Weak’ Assurance Level should be reported to Committee.  During the first 6 months of the year there was a single audit with a weak assurance level - IT Application IDOX contract management.  Management had responded positively to the audit report recommendations and the timescale for follow up was Quarter 1 2021.

Questions followed:

·  How were the audit reviews that were dropped selected? (Councillor Mark Elliott). Andy Cox restated that selection was based on the risk assessment methodology used during the preparation of the plan. The majority of the audits to be dropped were those at the bottom of the list (risk order). He also commented specifically on the two property reviews included in the list of audits to be dropped and that the current Property Review led by the Chief Operating Officer would cover some of the scope of the planned audits.

·  Those audit reviews to be dropped this year will be considered for inclusion in next year’s Audit Plan.

·  The External Auditor paper did not record any fraud within the Council but in July there was a presentation on fraud investigations.  Why didn’t the External Auditor refer to fraud? (John Barker).  Andy Cox responded that there was dialogue with the external auditor around investigations and any identified fraudulent activity.  The fraud reported to the Committee was a single case and would have been regarded as immaterial by the External Auditor based on the value of losses.

·  Why had GLL contract management planned audit been dropped? (Councillor Brian Simmons).  Andy Cox stated that based on the impacts of Covid19 the financial viability of Leisure Service providers was a key risk and this would require contact with service management.  However, the significant impact in service delivery enabled the dropping of the audit this year.

RESOLVED that

1)  The progress made against the Internal Audit Plan for 2020/21 be noted; and

2)  The revised Internal Audit Plan for 2020/21 resulting in a reduction of planned audit reviews from 35 to 26 be agreed.