Agenda item
Internal Audit Report - Torah Temimah Primary School
The attached report includes the findings and recommendations arising from a recent audit of internal controls at Torah Temimah Primary School. The Audit Committee has a role in reviewing audits with limited or nil assurance opinions. The Head teacher and Chair of Governors of Torah Temimah have been invited to attend the meeting of the committee to discuss the main issues highlighted in the report.
Minutes:
Vanessa Bateman (Interim Head of Audit and Investigation) introduced the report which included the findings and recommendations arising from a recent audit of internal controls at Torah Temimah Primary School. She highlighted that the internal audit had raised actions in every key area of internal controls. It was noted specifically that 11 priority one recommendations, 15 priority two recommendations and five priority three recommendations had been put forward. The Committee heard that the overreaching areas of weakness included the school’s overall financial process; governance; failure to comply with financial rules and regulations alongside concerns on staff employment status particularly relating to employment contracts of non-teaching staff. Vanessa Bateman then outlined that the school was continuing its engagement with Council Officers and had developed its own action plan based on the report’s recommendations since the agenda for this Committee was published.
Rabbi Yitzchak Freeman (Head Teacher of Torah Temimah) and Uri Kaplan (Chair of the Governing Body) addressed the Committee and began by wishing to place on record that the audit had been conducted with the highest degree of professionalism and that it had been a pleasure to work with the Council Officers involved. He stated that the school completely accepted the findings of the report and was pleased that it was recognised that, despite the concerns, there was no suggestion of any impropriety or misappropriation of funds. The Committee heard that Torah Temimah believed that these issues related to procedural problems rather than any individual wrongdoing.
Rabbi Yitzchak Freeman
continued by giving some background information to Members on the
situation at the school which he believed had contributed to the
problems highlighted in this report. He outlined that Torah
Temimah was a small school with limited
expertise on financial matters and had relied on the expertise of
its previous Bursar for six years. It was mentioned that whilst
there were growing concerns about performance the school had found
it difficult to recruit high calibre staff in this area in order to
make any required changes.
Upon receiving the Council’s nil assurance audit option report Rabbi Yitzchak Freeman emphasised the steps that the school took, and were continuing to take, to address this situation including appointing two new interim Bursars in the short term. Whilst these interim appointments had now ended, the school’s long term plan was to divide up aspects of the Bursar role and outsource elements where necessary. This will include: Rabbi Yitzchak Freeman taking on more strategic aspects of the Bursar role whilst working with an independent company to take up auditing functions; taking on additional staff to manage the paperwork; revising the school’s day to day accounting procedures; working closely with the bank to manage the school’s four main accounts and working with Brent’s Human Resources (HR) Department more closely to solve employment related issues. Uri Kaplan also added that since the report, the school had also taken on more Finance Governors and that, whilst the action plan could be considered challenging, the school hoped to have full assurance to report in the near future.
The Chair pointed out that in the Council’s action plan for the school there were a number of recommendations with an imminent implementation date of 30 September and questioned whether the school was on course to achieve these. Rabbi Yitzchak Freeman responded saying that school was likely to achieve a lot of them, but would be unlikely to be able to achieve all of them. He stated that the ones likely to be missed were due to the slow process of implementing them, which was unfortunately out of the school’s control. The specific example was given regarding the employment contracts for non-teaching staff. Rabbi Yitzchak Freeman outlined that any issues relating to the implementation dates on the Council’s action plan had been picked up and addressed in the school’s own action plan which had been developed subsequently.
Members questioned how the governance arrangements at the school could be better utilised and whether the school had an audit committee alongside a financial planning committee. In response, Rabbi Yitzchak Freeman said that the school did not have a specific audit committee as it fell within the terms of reference of the present arrangements for the school’s finance committee. He stated that in light of this report, the finance committee at the school was now becoming much more involved in the school’s operations and taking a much more forensic approach to its financial affairs. It was also mentioned that the school now had an associate member on its finance committee with significant expertise in this area which the school could draw upon.
Members also questioned in a more broad sense what lessons there were for the wider education system in Brent on this, particularly for smaller schools, as it was not the first time issues such as this had arisen before the Committee. Vanessa Bateman responded stating that the issues highlighted in this case were facing a lot of London Boroughs and it was up to the Council to consider the risks that could be prevalent in this Borough and address any problems. She proposed that there could be a significant role for training schools on the importance of good audit and governance arrangements as many shared the same risks. There was also a discussion around schools across the Borough potentially sharing expertise and resources on governing audit and finance issues. She made clear that the audit team at the Council would be addressing the lessons to be learned from this case.
RESOLVED that:
(i) The main issues highlighted in the report following the nil assurance audit opinion and the actions to be taken by the School to address them, be noted: and
(ii) The school’s updated action plan based on the recommendations within the report be shared and circulated to Members via the Chief Finance Officer.
Supporting documents:
- Torah_Temimah_cover_report, item 5. PDF 69 KB
- V2 Final - Torah Temimah Primary School 2015-16 September 2016, item 5. PDF 708 KB