Issue - meetings

This report summarises the activity of Internal Audit for the financial year 2023-24, including an update on work completed since the previous report in December 2023.  In addition, the report sets out the Annual Internal Audit opinion, provided by the Deputy Director Organisational Assurance and Resilience (as the Head of Internal Audit), on the adequacy and effectiveness of the Council’s framework for governance, risk management and control, which is used to support the Council’s Annual Governance Statement and presents revised Internal Audit Charter, reflecting the recent change in the role of the Head of Internal Audit.

Darren Armstrong (Deputy Director Organisational Assurance and Resilience) introduced the report which outlined the activity undertaken by Internal Audit during 2023-24 (and work undertaken since the previous update in December 2023) and included the Annual Audit opinion provided by the Deputy Director Organisational Assurance and Resilience (as Head of Internal Audit) on the adequacy and effectiveness of the Council’s framework for governance, risk management and internal control used to support the Annual Governance Statement.

Members were advised the report also presented the revised Internal Audit Charter, which had been amended to reflect the change in role of the Head of Internal Audit, with the Chair advising he would therefore consider each section of the report as separate items, prior to summarising the overall outcome.

In considering the Internal Audit Annual Report (as detailed within Appendix 1 of the report) the Committee noted the following key points:

·                There had been no actual or perceived threats to the independence and objectivity of the Internal Audit function in relation to the work carried out to deliver the 2023-24 internal audit plan. The Head of Internal Audit and all internal auditors had continued to receive unrestricted access to senior management, officers and all information and records necessary to undertake their work.  This was supported by the internal audit function having also received an External Quality Assessment (EQA) during 2022-23, which identified no concerns regarding to the independence or objectivity of the function.

·                The summary relating to delivery of the internal audit plan during 2023-24 contained within section 3 and Appendix A of the Annual Report;

·                The flexible and risk-based approach adopted towards development and delivery of the Annual Internal Audit Plan, with the summary of risk issues identified during 2023-24 and comparison with 2021-22 and 2022-23 provided in section 4 and Appendix B of the Annual Report.

·                The outline of Follow Up activity undertaken during 2023-24 in relation to previous audit reviews as detailed within section 5 and Appendix C of the Annual Report.  The Annual Report also included an outline of actions partially or still to be implemented along with the process of management engagement on these, as detailed within Appendix D of the Annual Report.

·                As detailed within section 6 of the Annual Report, the Head of Internal Audit had been satisfied that the work undertaken by Internal Audit during 2023-24, as well as wider governance arrangements, had enabled a “reasonable assurance” audit opinion to be provided on the Council’s control framework, risk management and governance arrangements.  In determining the annual opinion, the Head of Internal Audit had considered which key themes from audit work undertaken in 2023-24 could be enhanced in the future to better support the Council’s governance, risk management and internal control frameworks. The areas of improvement identified as a result had been detailed within section 6.17 – 6.24 of the Annual Report and included:

o      The rate of implementation of audit recommendations/actions within original timescales; and

o      The need to continue addressing “second line” gaps in control identified  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8