Issue - meetings

To receive the Internal Audit Activity Report.

The Principal Auditor presented the Internal Audit Activity Report for the period 1 April 2026 to 30 June 2026 and the unplanned work to date.

The report set out the details on progress made against the 2026/27 Internal Audit Plan and provided details of the recent work of Internal Audit with the key focus being the completion of the audits contained on the annual audit plan and fulfilling their commercial contracts.

From the 47 audits shown in the 26/27 audit plan, 4 were in progress with eight reports being issued.  This included one red (poor), three amber (limited), three yellow (reasonable) and one green (good) report.  Improvement had now been made in these areas.

Work continued on the external contracts with nine academy trusts and two Parish and Town Council contracts.

During the debate, some Members were pleased to see improvements had been made from the previous report, but where improvements had not been made previously the Committee had invited the Service Heads to report on why those improvements were not being brought forward and asked if this could be reintroduced.  Other Members felt that although there may be areas that required improvement, it was important to look at processes and make adjustments in order that the council worked to the best of its capacity and channel resources as required and it showed that both internal and external audit were thorough and robust.

Members noted the report.