Agenda item

Report of Internal Audit Manager.

The Committee considered the report of the Internal Audit Manager regarding a summary of the activities of Internal Audit for the financial year 2015/16.

A list of all final audit reports issued from 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2016 and the level of assurance attained were detailed in the report.  The Committee was advised that the assurance levels were given at the time of the initial report and did not reflect the findings at follow up.

During the fourth quarter of the year, one report (Business Continuity Planning) had been issued with an assurance level of performing inadequately.

Audit work carried out to date against the audit plan to the end of December 2015 was set out in appendix A.  Main points from the appendix were summarised in the report.

Further information on reports issued in final during the year with an assurance level below excellent was set out in Appendix B, with any issues highlighted in the reviews which informed the assurance level given.  The Committee was reassured that this status was the assurance level given at the time the final report was issued and did not reflect recommendations that had been addressed.

Appendix C detailed the outstanding recommendations and client comments of reviews that had been given an inadequate assurance level after follow ups.  Comments from the Corporate Management Team (CMT) and Heads of Service had also been included.

Victor Benney, IT Programme Manager addressed the Committee in response to the IT inadequacies that had been raised at the previous meeting due to a lack of testing of the Council’s current Disaster Recovery Plan.

The Committee were given an overview of the Council’s current Disaster Recovery Planning and advised that testing of this plan would be undertaken later this year.

He reiterated that work was ongoing on creating a joint and robust Disaster Recovery Plan with Lewes District Council, where each authority would host each other’s IT system.  Implementation and testing of this would be in place by mid-point next year.

The Committee addressed the inadequate rating of Licences (Entertainment and Taxi). Councillor Dow, Chairman of Licensing Committee reiterated that he was meeting regularly with the newly appointed Senior Specialist Advisor (Thriving Business) and reassured the Committee that steps were being taken to address the issues detailed in the report.

The Committee was advised that should issues continue to arise, the Senior Specialist Advisor (Thriving Business) could be invited to attend and address a future meeting of the Committee.

In response to a question from the Committee regarding the inadequate rating of Procurement, the Internal Audit Manager advised that a follow up was currently in progress.  Any further issues would be reported back to the Committee at a future meeting.  The Committee were advised to speak to the Head of Projects and Performance if they required any more information around procurement.

Work undertaken by the Corporate Fraud team and East Sussex Counter Fraud Hub was detailed in the report along with The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy’s (CIPFA) code of practice on Managing the Risk of Fraud and Corruption.

The Internal Audit Manager advised that the work referred to in the report had been used as the basis for the opinion of the overall effectiveness and adequacy of the internal control environment, in addition to other ad hoc work undertaken by the auditors.  It was the opinion of the Internal Audit Manager that internal controls across the authority were generally found to be sound, apart from the continuing lack of business continuity plans across the authority.  CMT had been asked to consider that this issue be reported in the Annual Governance Statement.

The Public Sector Internal Audit Standards assessed the work of Internal Audit for compliance annually.  The Committee was advised that the Internal Audit function was generally conforming to the standards with a 99.05% rating.  Areas of partial compliance were detailed in a table at the end of the report.  Progress was ongoing to address these issues.

A peer review of the Council, as required by these standards was currently being undertaken and this would be reported back at the next meeting.

RESOLVED: (Unanimous) That the report be noted.