Agenda item

To approve the Internal Audit Six Month Plan 2019/20 (October-March). 

30.1          The report of the Head of Corporate Services, circulated at Pages No. 113-118, set out the proposed Internal Audit Plan for October 2019 to March 2020.  Members were asked to approve the six month plan as set out at Appendix 1 to the report.

30.2           The Head of Corporate Services advised that a six month work plan had been introduced following a recommendation arising from the independent peer review; a six month plan was more flexible than a 12 month plan and allowed the Internal Audit team to progress the organisation.  The plan for October 2019 to March 2020 provided a total of 172 productive days and would cover: governance related activity; corporate risk register; corporate improvement; financial systems; and, service area related activity.  Days had been specifically allocated to risk management following a recommendation arising from an external assessment; the serious and organised crime framework which had been recommended by the Home Office; complaints which had been discussed at the Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting the previous week; and, data quality.  In terms of finance, as well as service related debt recovery, the Head of Finance and Asset Management had requested that an audit be carried out on commercial credit cards.  It was noted that 20 days had been allocated for corporate improvement and 20 days for the corporate risk register.  A number of days had also been set aside for ongoing work to implement the team’s Quality Assurance and Improvement Programme which included the peer review of individual audit assignments and supporting documentation.  Follow-up reviews were an important aspect of internal audit work and 15 days had been allocated for this purpose in the six month period.  In addition, the Internal Audit team also provided consultancy and advice and sat on various corporate groups such as the Procurement Group, Keep Safe Stay Healthy Group and Programme Board with days allocated in the plan accordingly.

30.3           The Chair suggested it may be beneficial to hold a workshop for the Committee to discuss items that they might like to see included in the six month plan.  The Head of Corporate Services advised that the Internal Audit team had run a workshop previously to demonstrate the work that went into an audit and it may be useful to repeat this for new Members.  A Member suggested that this could be held prior to the next Committee meeting in December as he had some specific questions and it would be useful to have an opportunity to raise them outside of a meeting environment and to have some general discussions to share ideas.  It was subsequently

RESOLVED          1. That the Internal Audit Six Month Plan 2019/20 be NOTED.

2. That a workshop be arranged to take place prior to the next meeting of the Audit and Governance Committee in December to gain a better understanding of audit processes and procedures and to allow Members to ask specific questions and share ideas as to what might be included in the internal audit plan in future.