Agenda item

To approve the Internal Audit Six Month Plan 2022/23 (April-September 2022) as detailed in Appendix 1. 

51.1          The report of the Head of Corporate Services, circulated at Pages No. 120-127, set out the proposed Internal Audit Plan for April-September 2022.  Members were asked to approve the six month plan as set out at Appendix 1 to the report.

51.2          The Head of Finance and Asset Management advised that, in normal circumstances, the plan would be delivered by two full-time equivalent members of staff.  Currently the team was resourced with 1.5 full-time equivalents due to the redeployment of resources to the business cell and information governance.  Plan delivery was based on 1.5 full-time equivalents plus additional resource from budget reserves which was ringfenced for technical ICT audit work which brought that up to 1.7 full-time equivalents.  From July, it was hoped that the work of business cell would come to a conclusion and the Internal Auditor could return to her team.  In addition, a new Information Governance Officer post had been approved as part of the 2022/23 budget so, as soon as that had been recruited to, a further 0.5 full-time equivalent could be returned to internal audit.  The Head of Finance and Asset Management indicated that he was also looking at new burdens funding to see if that would allow further investment in internal audit.  Taking all of this into account, it was hoped there would be 4.2 full-time equivalents delivering the Internal Audit Plan as opposed to the normal two which demonstrated the level of investment into the Internal Audit team which he hoped to see continue into the following financial year.  The Internal Audit Plan took into account several key aspects which were detailed at Pages No. 122-123 of the report.  It was noted that a number of days had been allocated for follow-up reviews - these had been somewhat neglected in recent months so it was necessary to pick up those recommendations and report back to Members as to whether they had been delivered.

51.3          The Chair welcomed the plan and the resources that were being put into its delivery.  He had recently had a positive meeting with the Internal Audit team and was confident that progress would now be made.  A Member recognised that internal audit cost money so it was a question of balancing risk against the cost of risk management – the pandemic had inadvertently meant that the Council had functioned without internal audit for the last year and, based on that, he asked whether 4.2 full-time equivalents was sensible and if the balance was right.  In response, the Head of Finance and Asset Management explained that the 4.2 full-time equivalents was a temporary measure in order to help with recovery and that would go back to the normal level of two going forward.  In his view, this was the right amount of resource to adequately inform the internal audit function and gain a sense of reassurance.  A Member expressed the view that the plan ought to include something environmental as the Council had been doing so much work in that regard and the Head of Finance and Asset Management indicated that he was sure audits of the solar canopy and delivery of the carbon reduction plan would be included in future plans.

51.4          It was

RESOLVED           That the Internal Audit Six Month Plan 2022/23 (April-September) be NOTED.