To update members on the progress of internal audit work and to bring to their attention any key internal control issues arising from work recently completed.

The head of internal audit presented the report and highlighted the following: 

·         Six audits had been completed since the last update.

·         Two audits were at draft stage

·         Six audits were in progress.

·         One audit had been deferred to a later date at the request of the client.

·         A special investigation in quarter 1 had been completed. 

·         There were no high corporate risks identified in the audits. 

Three audits had priority 2 findings and details of these, together with timescales, were contained on pages 65 to 77 of the agenda pack. 

Contract management audit

The contract management audit was partial and had three priority 2 findings.  Three contracts had been audited.   Two were well managed but there had been findings in respect of the mainstream passenger transport contract. 

Following a query from a member of the committee, it was confirmed 2 officers asked do not use the contracts management tool kit and use localised arrangements to contract manage.  The assistant director confirmed that the contract procedure rules form part of the constitution that all directorates follow and the toolkit was available to officers to use but needed updating.    The resourcing of the commercial team was being looked at and the target date for updating the toolkit and other actions was 30 April 2020. 

The head of transport and access services confirmed that a compliance officer had been recruited and this has provided dedicated resource for developing contract management processes, monitoring and documentation.  The monitoring programme has been developed to monitor over 40 transport providers delivering over 200 passenger transport contracts.  

It was noted that onsite contract compliance checks would take place without advance notice and that the programme will be target where there are concerns relating to specific providers following an intelligence led approach. 

South Wye Transport Package (SWTP) Phase 1 – Governance

The internal audit in respect of the SWTP had looked at the procurement of the Southern Link Road (SLR) which had four priority 2 findings.     The findings had been in connection with the procurement process and the recording and documentation of the actions of officers during the process.  

A member of the committee noted that in the audit plan for 2018/19 there was an audit in connection with the effectiveness of major projects which had been reasonable and there had been no priority 2 recommendations and sought clarification of the interlinkage of the two audits given the findings in the SLR phase 1 audit.  The head of internal audit confirmed that there were interlinkages and that the audit into the effectiveness of major projects had had a wider scope and the SLR phase 1 audit had looked at one particular area.    There had been priority 3 recommendations in the effectiveness of major projects which were not reported to the committee.   

A member of the committee noted that in the Blue School House follow up report, recommendation 7 had been marked as in progress and recommendation 8 had been marked as complete.    The head of internal audit reported that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 389