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.

To assure the committee that action is being taken on risk related issues identified by internal audit. This is monitored through acceptance of agreed management actions and progress updates in implementing the action plans. In addition, occasions where audit actions not accepted by management are documented if it is considered that the course of action proposed by management presents a risk in terms of the effectiveness of or compliance with the council’s control environment.

The Head of Internal Audit (HIA) introduced the report the purpose of which was 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 and to assure the committee that action was being taken on risk related issues identified by internal audit.

The principal points were noted:

·       No high organisational risks had been identified.

·       2 Limited assurances were identified of which there were 7 priority 2 findings.

·       4 priority two actions were identified in the use of spot purchasing, non-accommodation audit and 3 were from the Court of Protection Audit.

·       Four audits had been completed since the last progress report with 11 currently in progress and 3 at draft report stage.

·       Links to corporate risks remain largely the same as the last progress update but this is to be expected as SWAP awaits the Council’s revised Corporate Risk Register.

·       Once the corporate risk registers had been revisited, updates would be made to the dashboard with the corporate risks and moving forward officers would work to and agree the best approach for providing members with assurance for those areas with no coverage.

·       Adjustments had been made to the visual presentation on the Internal audit work programme and coverage dashboard used to identify the coverage at the request of the committee at the previous meeting.

·       27 actions had been closed off since the last update with a further 11 actions having been agreed with Council officers. 44 actions are pending remediation. Work would continue to gain an update from the responsible officers allocated to the actions. Work would continue to concentrate on those that are most overdue.

·       A continued high feedback score of 99% was still being achieved

The committee noted the report and were satisfied with the areas of activity and necessary improvements outlined.