Issue - meetings

The Chief Auditor presented a report which presented the audits finalised and any other work undertaken by the Internal Audit Section during the period 1 January 2019 to 31 March 2019.

A total of 27 audits were finalised during the quarter. The audits finalised were provided at Appendix 1, which also showed the level of assurance given at the end of the audit and the number of recommendations made and agreed.  A total of 213 audit recommendations were made and management agreed to implement 209, i.e. 98% of the recommendations made were accepted against a target of 95%. 

Appendix 2 showed that by the end of March 2019, 87% of the planned reviews had been completed to at least draft report stage, with an additional 3% of the planned audits in progress.  As a result, approximately 90% of the Audit Plan was either completed or in progress.  It was noted that the remaining 10% of the planned jobs have been carried forward to the 2019/20 plan.

The Internal Audit Section had seen a significant increase in the levels of sickness absence in quarter 2 and quarter 3 of 2018/19.  A cumulative total of 142 days sickness as at the 31/03/19, against an annual budget of 66 days were recorded.  As noted previously, the vast majority of this absence was in relation to three members of staff being off work long term as a result of non-work related issues / illness during the year.

The Committee were also provided with details of grants certified and significant

issues which led to a moderate rating issued in the quarter.

Information regarding additional work and details of follow-ups completed between 1 January 2019 to 31 March 2019 were specified, including Bishop Gore Comprehensive School, Portmead Primary School and Cleaning Services audits.  In all cases, the follow up review confirmed that significant progress had been made in implementing the recommendations made, with all of the High and Medium Risk recommendations being fully implemented.

The Committee asked questions of the Officer, which were responded to accordingly.  Discussions included the following: -

·         Reasons for deferrals and deferred audits being dealt with in quarter 1 of the new financial year;

·         The process of adding new audits onto the annual plan with the assistance of heads of service;

·         The debt recovery audit being deferred and included in the Accounts Receivable follow-up audit scheduled for September/October 2019 with the results being reported to Committee as part of the standard Fundamental Audit Recommendation Tracker Report, as in previous years.

The Chair added that she would be meeting the Chief Finance Officer and Chief Auditor following the meeting to discuss some audit reports in order to understand the risks and to seek assurance.  She would report back to the Committee in August 2019.

Resolved that the contents of the report be noted.