Agenda item

Report and appendices attached.

The Head of Fraud, Audit, Insurance and Risk presented a report giving an update on the work undertaken by the internal audit team. The report covers the period 1st October to 31st December.

It was explained that the audit plan for 2024/25 had been updated to show current position and this is set out in Appendix A.

Narrative progress against the original plan is shown at 2.1 to 2.13 and paragraph 2.1.4 identifies amendments which have had to be made to the plan. 

Since the Audit Committee met in October 2024, 12 audits have been completed and reports have been issued to Members, these are detailed at table 2.2.1 , also seven first follow ups and four second follow ups have been completed and these are detailed at paragraph 2.3

At the time of preparing the report, there were 9 audits in progress and one draft report had been issued.  (Details are at paragraph 2.4.1.)

·         Councillor Moss referred to 2.1.2  of the report and stated that the 24/25 Plan has always been in difficulties because of the number of non-finalised audits from 23/24.

Councillor Moss asked whether there will always be some work that carries over from one year to another, and whether, when the  plan for 25/26 is presented to the Committee in April Janet will be confident of being able to forecast how much work will be left over from 24/25?

Councillor Moss also enquired as to whether any follow ups from 24/25 Audits go into the Plan for 25/26 or do they count as unfinished 24/25?

The Head of Fraud, Audit Insurance and Risk explained that the Annual Audit Plan will identify audits which have been brought forward from 24/25.  Some audits for 24/25 may not now be needed if other works have been undertaken in the area (external review for example) and these will not be brought forward. The Committee receives a report at each meeting on progress on current year plan which includes audits to be carried forward. The report estimates the target days for each review brought forward, but as with any other audit review, these are a target and may come in under / over this target time.

It is very  difficult to be exact when preparing the plan to know the work leftover to be carried forward as we will be writing the Audit Committee  reports and producing the audit plan 6 weeks prior to the end of the financial year.  Other works may take priority in those six weeks which could cause further slippage.  We will however do our best to identify the audits that will not have been completed by the end of March.  Looking at what is still active as at Monday 10 February, there are 17 active audits that are currently at different stages of the process and 6 audits that are still to commence.

Follow ups from 24/25 roll over into the next financial year and go into the plan and will be counted within the total days allocated to 1^st follow up and 2^nd follow up. 

·         Councillor Moss referred to the criticism by the External Auditors of our internal controls and the quality of the Accounts and stated that it was unfortunate that Main Accounting Key Controls, Income and Bank Key Controls and Creditors are all being scrapped for 24/25 and that the Audit Committee needs to be certain that these will be done in 25/26.

The Head of Fraud, Audit Insurance and Risk explained that the reviews are being carried forward not scrapped as follow ups on both of these audits are still being undertaken.

·         Councillor Moss asked whether the processes for all these change when Unit 4 is introduced in April 26.

It was explained that work would be done on the main key controls, and if required would then introduce a deeper dive around the areas.

The Internal Audit Team will be being included within the working groups for the upgrade to the Unit 4 system and will be including a number of days into the plan to facilitate attendance to these meetings.  As the introduction is not until April 2026 testing on implemented processes would be included within the 2026/27 audit plan not within 2025/26 plan.

It was agreed:

That the report and the work undertaken by Internal Audit be noted.