The purpose of this report is to enable the committee to provide independent assurance on the adequacy of the risk management framework together with the internal control of the financial reporting and annual governance processes by considering the head of internal audit’s annual report and opinion, and the level of assurance it gives over the council’s corporate governance arrangements.

The Assistant Director (AD) for South West Audit Partnership (SWAP) presented the report on Internal Audit Annual Opinion 2022/23. The purpose of the annual report was outlined; attention was drawn to Appendix A - Internal Audit Annual Opinion 2022/23.  The following key areas were highlighted:

Activity and outcomes during the year

1.          47 reviews were delivered as part of the 2022/23 rolling Internal Audit Plan.

2.          80% of internal audit reports gave a substantial or reasonable assurance opinion.

3.          6 out of 8 strategic risks had good or ‘some’ audit coverage, the opinion was there had been effective audit coverage throughout the year.

4.          There were no areas of significant corporate risk reported.

5.          Five themes were highlighted to the committee:

            I.                   Financial controls and budgetary management

It was highlighted that, although generally the Council operated effectively with commitment accounting and validating payments, there were a few isolated cases within some service teams where this was not the case and SWAP would be offering awareness training to those departments.

          II.               Grant Administration

The lack of consistent practices and knowledge of Grant Administration were highlighted. Cases were isolated to some service areas and not widespread.   SWAP would support the Council by offering training to those departments.

        III.               Oversight of regulator actions

Whilst the actions identified by key regulators were picked up and the council monitored those effectively, it was reported that some actions from smaller regulators had slipped through the net.

Internal Audit would look to promote assurance mapping across the Council. SWAP was currently engaging with the Council’s Performance Team to support the real time tracking of known actions through its audit management system.

        IV.              Counter Fraud and Risk Management

The overall opinion was that these were working effectively and outstanding actions had generally been implemented although it was highlighted that some improvement was needed around some of the long-term actions.  

         V.              Prevention and detection of fraud

The Council had demonstrated effective control and had been able to protect public funds from fraud.

Taking into account the five themes highlighted, it was the AD’s overall opinion for the year that generally the Council had sound systems of governance, risk management and internal controls however there was some scope for improvement in some areas.

In response to committee questions, it was noted:

1.          The AD said that it was difficult to put an indicator about the level of internal control but indicated that it was in line with the previous performance and similar to that of other authorities.

2.          In a query raised around external regulatory assessment, it was explained that these related to recommendations from regulators at a service level. An example was given with regard to the Registration Services report which identified a failure to address a number of recommendations made in an inspection by the General Register Office and where there had been no particular oversight or tracking from a managerial point of view and therefore no oversight as to if these recommendations had been implemented.

3.          It  ...  view the full minutes text for item 22