Agenda item

This report summarises the outcomes of the evaluation of the effectiveness of the Audit and Standards Advisory Committee for the municipal year 2024-25.

10. Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Audit and Standards Advisory Committee

The Chair introduced the report, thanking Darren Armstrong (Deputy Director Organisational Assurance and Resilience) for circulating the report and Harry Ellis (Governance Officer) for compiling member’s responses. He then expressed gratitude to members for their comprehensive and frank responses to the self-assessment survey. The Chair noted that the responses indicated a need to improve performance rather than to completely transform operations. Several key themes emerged from the member responses with members expressing a clear desire to broaden input from officers beyond the finance department, seeking wider representation from all teams and departments across the Council. Significant concerns were raised about both the timeliness and length of agendas, with members highlighting issues around short notice distribution. Members also requested more oversight reports focusing on forward planning and deep dive investigations. Strong emphasis was placed on the need for better follow-up of audit recommendations and ongoing monitoring of progress; various general concerns were also identified regarding internal audit, including questions about structure, role, and working relationships. The Chair acknowledged that given the volume of work ahead, the Committee would need to significantly improve its approach to avoid falling behind. It was proposed that, to help maintain members understanding of the field, internal audit training be arranged for the next available timeslot, with officers noting that September was already allocated to a session on standards training. Training would cover current internal audit methods and approaches, the new risk-based audit approach and its implementation over the past year, as well as a detailed examination of internal audit operations. In response to ideas of outsourcing the workload of the Committee, the Chair clarified to members that the Committee already operated a co-sourced model, with PwC providing specialist number of hours annually, particularly in areas such as cyber security where in-house expertise was not feasible or cost effective.

Following the Chair’s report, he opened the floor to any questions or concerns held by members of the Committee, with the key highlights of these summarised below:

·            Committee members commended the self-improvement initiative, commending recent efforts to broaden departmental input, observed in recent items on DSG, housing regulations and procurement investigation. Member’s requested additional suggestions from all Committee members for future departmental involvements.

·            Regarding possible improvements to be made to the Committee, members praised recent meetings for implementing a policy requiring officers to avoid verbal updates on routine items unless urgent or substantive matters arose. Potential joint training opportunities with other London authorities were then suggested to leverage shared expertise and knowledge. One member highlighted the value of establishing a structured deep dive program similar to those used by other audit committees, suggesting this should be integrated into the annual work program. Within the discussion around this idea, members noted that the topics of cybersecurity and artificial intelligence could be expanded on. The possible establishment of time-limited working groups between committee meetings, to facilitate more effective deep dive investigations was suggested, noting the practical limitations of conducting thorough deep dives during formal committee sessions. The utilization of online meetings where appropriate was also suggested to improve accessibility.

With no further questions or points noted, the Chair acknowledged all the members contributions and confirmed that the Governance Team would work on implementing the working group proposal. The Chair once again thanked members for their contributions and the Committee RESOLVED to note the contents of the report.

Action – Governance Team to explore the implementation of a list of subjects for deeper exploration into the work program, alongside the establishment of inter-meeting working groups to facilitate these deep-dive investigations.