Skip to additional navigation Skip to content

Council and Democracy

Issue - meetings

Internal Audit Report - November 2020

Meeting: 24/11/2020 - Governance Scrutiny Group (Item 49)

49 Internal Audit Progress Report pdf icon PDF 235 KB

Report of the Executive Manager – Finance and Corporate Services

Additional documents:

Minutes:

GurpreetDulay, Senior Manager at BDO, the Council’s Auditors provided an update and summary of the Internal Audit Progress Report. The report provides the progress made against the 2020/21 internal audit plan and summarises the work completed, together with the audit assessment and any recommendations raised.

 

Mr Dulay advised the Group that due to Covid-19, some of the planned audits had not taken place as early as had been planned, but is now making good progress in the delivery of the 2020/21 audit plan.

 

The following audit reports were presented to the Group:

 

·       Events, Social Media and Communications 

 

Impact on annual opinion is positive. As a result of testing, one medium priority finding and five low priority findings were identified. The medium priority finding related to the lack of information regarding objectives and key performance indicators for social media and the monitoring and reporting against these.

 

·       Main Financial Systems

 

Impact on annual opinion is positive. As a result of testing, three low priority findings were identified and management actions were agreed in respect of these findings.

 

·       Licensing

 

The fieldwork on this audit was incomplete and Mr Dulay advised that this would be reported at the next Governance Scrutiny Group.

 

Mr Dulay informed the Group that a review had been completed to follow up on the progress made to implement the previously agreed management actions raised by RSM, BDO’s internal audit predecessor. There were 33 legacy management actions to consider in this review, which comprised of 4 medium and 29 low. Overall 27 of the 33 recommendations have been implemented or superseded, the others are in progress. The opinion of BDO is that Rushcliffe Borough Council has demonstrated good progress in implementing the agreed management actions.

 

Members asked specific questions in respect of Business Grants relating to Covid-19, and whether there had been any fraudulent applications identified.

Mr Dulay advised the Group that a Fraud Risk Assessment Audit is featured in the Audit Plan, a start date is to be confirmed with management. The executive Manager – Finance and Corporate services added that Risk Assessment training had been provided in September for Councillor’s and in particular members of Governance Scrutiny.

 

In looking ahead and taking into account the delays due to Covid-19, Members asked what assurances BDO could provide to ensure the progression and delivery of the Audit Plan. Mr Dulay explained that additional resources are allocated at set dates within the programme.

 

It was RESOLVED that Governance Scrutiny Group noted the final progress report 2020/21 provided in Appendix A of the report.