To receive a report which summarises of audit work undertaken and opinions issued in Quarter 2 of the municipal year.

The Committee considered a report of the Head of Audit and Risk Management which provided an update on progress on the agreed Audit Plan in the second quarter of the 2022/23 municipal year. The report also referenced additional work that had been assigned to the Audit Service and copies of the Audit Opinions issued during the period July 2022 to September 2022 as an appendix.

The report provided information about:

·         The delivery of the Audit Programme

·         Resourcing and the Audit Plan

·         Children’s Services and Education: Management Oversight and Supervisions, Foster Care Payments and the OfSTED Improvement Plan, Supporting People, Elective Home Education, Safer Recruitment in Schools, School financial Health Checks and Follow up Audits for individual schools with a limited assurance opinion.

·         Adult Services: Management oversight and supervisions, payments, adaptations and Adults Quality Assurance Framework,

·         Corporate Core and Information Governance: Core, ICT and Information governance

·         Neighbourhoods; Growth and Strategic Development: Pest Control, Youth and Play Provision Transition, Avro Hollows, Building Control, Housing Operations – Consumer and Building Safety Regulations and Highways Pothole Grant activity

·         Procurement, Contracts and Commissioning: Social Value, Our Town Hall - Management of Work Package Delivery, Adult Social Care: Contract Governance, The Factory - Management of Work Package Delivery and Payments, New Contract Management System, Counter-Fraud and Investigations (proactive and reactive corporate cases), and Other Reactive Investigations including Business Grants, Council Tax Reduction Scheme and Housing Tenancy

The Head of Audit and Risk Management introduced the report outlining the above points of consideration and responded to questions and comments from the Committee.

In response to a comment about the time taken to implement the reviewed Audit and Risk Management Service’s staffing structure, the Head of Audit and Risk Management responded that following advice from HROD, the decision had been taken to widen the process to a whole service review. The scale of change and complexities around staff migration had led to challenges in finalising the role descriptors for the Health and Safety team. However, these had very recently been agreed. Next steps were described as sign off from HROD and progression to the consultation period.

In response to a query about how costs to the Local Authority were recovered where it was under a statutory duty to intervene in remedial work for dangerous buildings, the Head of Audit and Risk Management advised that work in that area had not yet commenced. The Committee recognised that where those costs were attached to the sale of a particular piece of land, the time taken for those funds to be returned to the the Director of Planning, Building Control’s budget could be in some cases, extremely lengthy and sought to explore what actions could be taken to manage those deficits. The Head of Audit and Risk Management agreed to explore whether this matter could form part of the scope of Internal Audit’s work in that area.

In response to comments about the number of limited assurance opinions issued to schools around compliance with ‘safer recruitment’ policies, the Head of Audit and Risk Management explained that whilst the Local Authority offered training to schools, officers were seeking to explore how compliance assurance could be strengthened. Discussions moved to schools financial health checks. The Committee noted the progress described in the report and asked what measures were being undertaken to ensure that guidance on financial compliance had been appropriately strengthened, including other Authority approaches. The Head of Audit and Risk Management explained that samples used the report were to a limited degree, skewed, in that they comprised of a mixture of targeted and randomly selected schools with some selected purely on the basis that they had not been visited for an audit of any given capacity for some time. Capacity as a result of staff vacancies and the segregation of duties within smaller schools remained a prevalent issue to be resolved. The Head of Audit and Risk Management added that whilst these findings were not uncommon across the wider school estate, there was no room for complacency, and as such, officers would seek to explore to what extent other authority’s approaches had achieved. However as both the budget and estate had reduced over the recent years, the ability of the Authority to provide support and challenge to schools had declined. In terms of action points, the Authority would be writing to all schools about the findings of the thematic audit and following issue of the final audit report (an Executive Summary of which would be provided to the Committee), next steps would be agreed. The Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer added that majority of the Local Authority’s school estate were primary schools where challenges around divisions of duty were most likely to occur. Additional guidance on how to practice safely was therefore being developed in light of pressured resources within the schools sector.

There was a discussion about the volume and complexities of various grant funding schemes and their reliance on assurance processes to be overseen by internal audit and finance capacity resources. The Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer described the challenge and additional burden this placed on the services as a direct result of the associated governance and the assurance processes which underpinned them. The committee was advised that different government departments and funding institutions have different requirements and processes.

The Head of Audit and Risk Management responded to questions about the report’s reference to ICT’s Vulnerability, and Asset Management programmes, noting the issue of a reasonable assurance opinion. The Deputy Executive Member for Finance and Resources referred to the refreshed ICT and Digital Strategy which would be considered at the upcoming meeting of the Executive for approval and would address the points raised in the audit. A rollout of staff training on the new Data Strategy, a strand of which would establish a solution for the retention of important documents, whilst adhering to regulatory framework. A bespoke training exercise for elected members was also planned. In response the management of vulnerabilities he described a reasonably defendable position with further information to follow in due course. With regard to the Authority’s website and Customer Relations Management (CRM) system, these too were under review, with a view to improving accessibility for residents, the vision being that CRM would eventually accommodate virtually all resident-facing Council Services and improve resident’s digital experience

Decision

To note the update.