Issue - meetings

To consider the Audit and Governance Committee Annual Report 2021/22. 

A verbal update on the outcome of the Audit and Governance Committee’s consideration of the annual report will be provided at the meeting.

30.1           Attention was drawn to the Audit and Governance Committee’s annual report 2021/22, circulated with the Agenda at Pages No. 57-67, which Members were asked to consider.

30.2           The Chair of the Audit and Governance Committee expressed the view that the content of the report demonstrated the breadth of activity undertaken by his Committee and dispelled the myth that it only dealt with financial matters. It received a variety of reports from different sources to give assurance that systems, procedures and policies were operating as they should be. Similar to 2020/21, that assurance had been diluted over the last year, mainly due to the Internal Audit team remaining deployed to support the administration of business grants. The Team had now returned to their normal work now the business cell, which had administered the whole raft of COVD-19 business grants, had been stood down. The cell had delivered over £30million of grants to the business community. Despite the closedown of the cell, a number of Officers from it were now administering the government’s Council tax/energy rebate scheme. In terms of the Council’s statement of accounts 2020/21, the external auditors had provided a glowing reference for the Finance team, which, even while largely working remotely, with resources also deployed to the business cell, together with the added complexity of continually monitoring the budget and completing a plethora of government returns as a result of the pandemic, had still produced an accurate set of accounts. Looking ahead, it was refreshing to return to normality and there was a great opportunity for the Committee to support the Council through its future challenges.

30.3           The Chair of the Audit and Governance Committee thanked Internal Audit for their hard work on the business grants administration and the Finance team for its work on the accounts. Accordingly, it was

                  RESOLVED          That the Audit and Governance Committee’s annual report                                2021/22 be NOTED.

To approve the Audit and Governance Committee Annual Report 2021/22. 

17.1          The report of the Chief Audit Executive (Head of Corporate Services), circulated at Pages No. 200-213, attached, at Appendix 1, the Audit and Governance Committee Annual Report 2021/22.   Members were asked to approve the report.

17.2          Accordingly, it was

RESOLVED           That the Audit and Governance Committee Annual Report 2021/22 be APPROVED.