Agenda item
Internal Audit Progress Report 2013/14
This report presents a summary of the work of Internal Audit and the Investigations Team from 1st April 2013 to 30th November 2013. The attached appendix to the report provides further details of audit reports issued.
Minutes:
The report from the Chief Finance Officer presented a summary of the work of Internal Audit and the Investigations Team from 1st April 2013 to 30th November 2013. The appendix provided further details of audit reports issued.
Simon Lane, Head of Audit and Investigations informed Members that as at 30/11/13, a total of 663 (53%) days had been delivered against the plan with plans in place to deliver additional days. He provided updates on work in the following areas;
Framework i phase 1 purchasing (fostering and residential placement for children)
The team identified weaknesses as set out in the report which resulted in a limited assurance rating. However, management responded quickly to the findings and recommendations and have implemented improvements. Simon Lane indicated that a re-audit now would most likely result in a substantial assurance rating.
Carers’ service hub
Overall, major control weaknesses including performance management, data management, and marketing were identified. An action plan to address the weaknesses had been agreed to be in place by 31 January 2014 covering service specification, the development of robust performance management process, regular monitoring of the hub by the Board including updating carers’ data.
Soft box, a migration project to launch a single system to replace Appointeeship and Deputyship accounts.
Overall, the key issues identified related to outstanding actions on the migration of information from legacy systems to Softbox, follow up of exceptions found on the Softbox, approval and review of direct debits. Recommendations made had been agreed by management.
Woodfield school
Nine priority 1; nineteen priority 2 and one priority 3 recommendations were raised as a result of this audit, all of which were agreed for implementation by the School.
Fraud housing benefit
High volume of fraud referrals were received which were screened out without investigation due to inadequate staffing level. Members queried whether additional resources would address this problem. Simon Lane pointed out that this was an issue across local authorities and that the new structure to be implemented within Audit and Investigations would help to address the high number of allegations which could not be investigated.
Housing Tenancy Fraud
Members heard that since 2010/11, the government had provided additional funding to encourage Councils to detect and address sub-letting of housing stock. The funding had enabled the Council to increase property recoveries as shown in table 5 of the report. In response to a member’s question about the source of allegations, Simon Lane responded that this was mainly via whistleblowing, gas safety checks and a recent data matching exercise with call credit.
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Other fraud
Following proactive exercises, there were 5 prosecutions during the quarter for blue badge fraud. He drew members’ attention to the statistics relating to internal fraud adding that 13 cases were investigated which resulted in 4 officer dismissals. He also gave an update on proceeds of crime act cases.
Simon Lane advised members about a key change in the CIPFA Code of Practice; the requirement to have an external, independent assessment of internal audit once every five years. These must be conducted by a suitably qualified independent assessor from outside the organisation. He added that a recommendation regarding proposals for this external assessment would be brought to a future meeting of this committee. Chair concurred.
In welcoming the report, the Chair added that where a service manager was not being helpful in addressing limited assurances, then the manager should be asked to attend a meeting of the Audit Committee to explain the situation to members. Such requests would need to be sanctioned by the Chief Finance Officer.
RESOLVED:
that the progress made in achieving the 2013/14 Internal Audit Plan and the review of fraud work be noted.
Supporting documents:
- Internal Audit Progress Report 2013-14 -cover, item 8. PDF 300 KB
- Internal Audit progress report appendix 1, item 8. PDF 214 KB