Issue - meetings

To receive the Annual Internal Update report and the 23/24 Audit Plan.

The Principal Auditor presented the Annual Internal Audit Update 2022/23, Audit Committee Annual Report 2022/23 and the 2023/24 Audit Plan.

The Annual report was approved by Audit Committee in May 2022 and set out the work of Internal Audit during the period 2022/23.

The were 629 planned days for Internal Audit during 2022/23 which included 49 days specialist ICT audit provision provided by Lighthouse Consultancy. The team achieved 82% of the planned work with some items being rescheduled into the 2023/24 plan.  In 2022/23 there had also been a number of unplanned audit assignments.  There had been 23 reports issued during 2022/23, compared to 32 in 2021/22 and 29 in 2020/21.  Whilst the number of yellow and red reports had decreased since 2021/22, the number of green and amber reports issued had remained comparable over the last three years.

The Public Sector Internal Audit Standards came into effect from 1st April 2013. In April/May 2022 an external assessment of Internal Audit was undertaken against these standards, which was a five year requirement.  The external assessment confirmed that the Council’s Internal Audit Team fully met the requirement of the standards. The report did outline six advisory points (to enhance the service and not for compliance purposes) that have been accepted and implemented in full.

The Internal Audit Team continually monitor their performance, compliance and best practice against a set of key performance indicators.  The Audit Plan target of 90% was slightly down to 82% due to long-term staff absence.  The target for issuing the draft report within 15 working days following completion of fieldwork was 93.75% which exceeded the 90% target.  One hundred percent of internal audit customers were either satisfied or very satisfied with audit work undertaken.  Feedback on performance was monitored via informal feedback during the audit, discussions during meetings, post audit electronic surveys and there was positive results.

The Annual report, which included the work of the Committee, had been discussed during the Terms of Reference.

In relation to the 2023/24 Internal Audit Plan, there was a statutory obligation to provide assurance to the Council on the governance framework and the effective management of risk.  Audit resources were limited and the plan was informed and influenced by previous audit work, management teams, strategic risk registers, external assessment and common themes picked by attendance at local regional network groups.  The plan was kept under continual review and changed where any risks were identified and any changes brought before the Committee.

During the debate Members thanked Internal Audit for their continuous hard work and asked that there be no reduction to audit resources.

Upon being put to the vote it was, unanimously:

RESOLVED – that

a)    the Internal Audit Annual Report for 2022/23 be noted;

b)   the Internal Audit Plan 2023/24 be approved; and

c)    the operations of the Audit Committee for 2022/23 be noted.