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 chairman used his discretion to move the progress report on the 2018/19 internal audit plan to the first item. 

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

·                  7 audits had been completed since the last update

·                  2 audits were in draft

·                  10 audits were in progress

·                  6 audits were assessed as reasonable

·                  There were 3 priority 2 findings across 6 audits

Hoople

The priority 2 finding had been in connection with the calculation of a key performance indicators (KPIs) as not all KPIs had written methodologies in support of the KPI calculation.   The recommendation had been accepted and there was a target completion date of 31 March 2019.

It was confirmed that without reviewing all the KPIs, it was not possible to confirm whether the issue with the Hoople KPIs would found in other KPI either within Hoople or elsewhere in the council.  

With regard to the development regeneration partnership (DRP) KPIs, there was no reason to believe that there was an issue with the KPIs but a 100% guarantee could not be given. 

Internal Control Improvement Board (Blueschool House)

The head of internal audit reported that pages 62 to 63 of the agenda pack provided an update on the internal control improvement board follow up review.    The report was currently in draft and would be provided to committee members when it was finalised. 

It was reported that the infrastructure was now in place to address the recommendations from the Blue School House audit report and provide a solid control framework.   Training has been provided on the processes and they now needed to be embedded across the council. 

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

·        That the South Wye Transport Package (SWTP) was not currently on the new project management system (Verto).   This was disappointing and frustrating for the committee as they were seeking assurance that a major project was following the project management processes now in place.    

·        The committee had requested assurance at its November meeting and again at its January meeting and it was only at this meeting that it was being reported that the assurance would not be possible because the project was not yet on Verto.

·        The agreement to move to the Verto system had only been agreed in October 2018 and there was a phased approach to projects being loaded on the system.

·        The SWTP would be subject to an internal audit in Q1 which would include governance compliance. 

·        Some committee members expressed concern that there may be an unauthorised overspend on a major project.   The chief finance officer confirmed that he did not recognise that there was an overspend on the SWTP.    A large amount of money had been spent and appropriately reported in the public domain on this project.   There had been a lot of examination of this project in a number of different forums.

·        The chief finance officer and head of internal audit were unable to comment further on this project until  ...  view the full minutes text for item 361