To be assured that the level and range of activity within the proposed revised annual internal audit plan is sufficient to provide assurance over the council’s corporate governance arrangements and provides appropriate coverage of key business activities, associated risks and risk management processes.

South West Audit Partnership presented the report and highlighted that since the internal audit plan 2020/21 had been approved by the committee there had been changes due to Covid-19.    Since the revised plan had been developed, there had been four further requests for additional reports and any changes to the plan will reported to the committee.  

During discussion of the item, the following points were raised:

·         There are a number of high priority internal audits due to commence throughout the financial year.

·         The plan will be kept under continual review and SWAP will try to maintain the higher priority audits in the plan.

·         There may be additional work due to Covid-19 and some audits will need to be deferred to next year.   

·         Details of timeframes should be included in the plan so that the committee could see if there was any slippage.  

·         Details of which quarters the internal audits were due to commence would be included in the progress report.

·         Audits which are replaced with additional work due to Covid-19 will provide details of the assurance given and that information feeds into the assurance statement at the end of the year.  

·         The prevention of fraud work was continuing.

·         The counter-fraud officer and team were continuing to work proactively with other agencies and the internals in this area.  

·         It was noted that the percentage of deferred audits was 35% which represented a 55% deferral rate for the children and families and adult and communities directorates.  

·         It was agreed that the chief finance officer would consider purchasing additional internal audit days as by the end of the year the percentage of deferred audits could be greater.

·         It was acknowledged that there would be reduced internal audit coverage in some areas but the additional Covid-19 audits may impact on those areas.    It was widely expected that nationally Covid-19 would impact on audit work.  

·         Further funding from the government was due to be announced on 19 October 2020.

·         The number of days purchased from SWAP was broadly comparable to other councils.

Cllr Yolande Watson joined the meeting at 11.06 am.

·         Funding had been received from the government in two streams.   The largest amount was in the form of unfenced funding and details were reported to Cabinet.   Funding was also received via a ring fenced grant to cover costs.   It was confirmed that there was sufficient funding to cover the additional audits.

·         It was noted that the budget was set for the core audit work and that decisions to undertake audits were based on need or a risk assessment.

·         It was confirmed that cost to the council of Covid-19 was being tracked as there would need to be an evaluation of the costs to the council and taxpayer.  It was further noted that there were would a lessons learnt exercise as well.

·         The Brexit preparedness internal audit planning work was due to commence shortly and it was confirmed that it should be completed before 31 December 2020.   The solicitor to the council confirmed that a  ...  view the full minutes text for item 20