Agenda item

To consider the Internal Audit work undertaken and the assurance given on the adequacy of internal controls operating in the systems audited for the period September to November 2013.

35.1           The report of the Policy and Performance Group Manager, circulated at Pages No. 39-54, summarised the work undertaken by the Internal Audit team for the period September-November 2013.  Members were asked to consider the audit work completed and the assurance given on the adequacy of internal controls operating in the systems audited.

35.2           Members were advised that good progress was being made towards the completion of the annual audit plan and the 90% target completion of the plan would be achieved.  The work undertaken during the period September-November 2013 was detailed at Appendix 1 to the report which provided a summary of the activity audited, the control objectives for each activity and the audit opinion for each control objective.  The outcome of any follow-up audits undertaken during the period was also included.  The Finance and Asset Management Group Manager indicated that a good level of assurance had been found in both the debtor and cash and bank audits.  Council tax was one of the most significant systems operated by the Council and it was encouraging that a good level of assurance had also been found in relation to this audit.  There had been good assurance on all aspects of the audit of the main accounting system and the structure of the system had been updated to reflect the changes arising from the organisational restructure, in accordance with control objective two.  A good level of assurance had also been found in relation to the work on the payroll audit.  The Finance and Asset Management Group Manager went on to explain that trade waste had been called in a number of times by the Committee and had been the subject of repeated follow-up audits.  It was pleasing to note that many of the outstanding recommendations from the last follow-up audit had now been completed including up-to-date transfer lists being held for commercial waste customers; crew lists being issued on a regular basis, which had led to further efficiencies; and recovery action being taken in accordance with the Recovery Policy.

35.3           With regard to the Council tax audit, a Member noted that the password for the Northgate system should be comprised of a minimum of seven characters and he sought clarification as to why this was the case when eight characters was the minimum amount for the majority of other systems he had used.  Members were advised that the Council’s IT team considered a seven character minimum to be best practice and for the password to contain a combination of alpha, numeric and special characters, nevertheless, the Finance and Asset Management Group Manager indicated that he would discuss this further with the IT team following the meeting.  A Member sought clarification as to what constituted a ‘regular’ basis in terms of changing the password and was informed that the password was changed every 30 days i.e. on a monthly basis.  When a member of staff left the authority their access to the system would be removed.

35.4           Having considered the information provided it was

RESOLVED          That the Internal Audit Plan Monitoring Report be NOTED.