Agenda item

Report of the Corporate Director of Finance and Resources

John Slater, Group Assurance and Audit Governance Manager, presented a report on the current Internal Audit activity that had resulted in ‘no assurance’ findings, and Shabana Kausar, Director of Finance, Lee Mann, Director of Human Resources (HR) and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Beth Brown, Director of Legal and Governance, and Lucy Lee, Director of Customer Services, provided verbal updates on the activity carried out in response. The following points were raised:

a)  There are currently five Internal Audit reviews that have been carried out that have reported positions of ‘no assurance’. To date, Internal Audit has provided updates on progress to the Committee every 3-4 months but, due to current capacity demands, it is unlikely that it will be possible for another report to be made until January 2025.

b)  In terms of reviewing the management of colleague expenses in October 2023, Internal Audit considered that the system of internal controls was weak, with consistent non-compliance with key controls. The policy governing expenses is being brought up to date, but this is not yet completed. Finance colleagues are confident that processes are now properly compliant and work is underway to recover overpayments, particularly in the context of milage claims. HR colleagues are also working to review and redraft the associated policies, working in consultation with staff and their Trade Unions.

c)  Internal Audit has reviewed the Council’s business continuity arrangements and was concerned by an apparent lack of control and reporting, with single points of failure identified within certain systems. Collating responses to the Internal Audit recommendations are underway, and the Council’s systems being reviewed in terms of their robustness for ensuring business continuity. Engagement is underway with IT colleagues on addressing the recommendations in relation to the Council’s IT systems.

d)  An Internal Audit report on Appointeeship in June 2023 raised concerns around the processes for managing appointeeship accounts. Work is underway to ensure that these issues are properly addressed, but progress has sometimes been slowed due to external factors.

e)  An Internal Audit report on HR and Payroll in June 2023 identified a number of concerns. HR has established systems to address overpayments, with policy reviews and system updates underway to ensure that compliant frameworks are in place. Compliance reports are run regularly and a great deal of work has been done to achieve the introduction of proper monitoring and compliance dashboards, particularly in the context of DBS renewals – where specific, regular reports are now made to departments where a number of their staff require these checks to be done.

f)  The Committee considered that it was important for learning to be taken from the Internal Audit reporting process in an integrated way across the whole Council so that issues were not repeated in the future.

Resolved:

1)  To request a written update from the Director of Finance on the progress towards meeting the Internal Audit recommendations in relation to Colleague Expenses.

2)  To request the detailed action plan for how the Internal Audit recommendations in relation to Business Continuity will be implemented.

3)  To request written confirmation from the Director of Customer Services once the final issues in relation to Appointeeship accounts have been concluded.

4)  To request a written update from the Director of Human Resources (HR) and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion on the progress towards meeting the Internal Audit recommendations in relation to HR and Payroll.