Issue - meetings

Report of the Executive Manager – Finance and Corporate Services

Mr Greg Rubins from BDO, the Council’s Internal 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 required.

Mr Rubins explained that due to the Covid pandemic some of the planned audits have not taken place as early in the year as planned.

The following audit was presented to the Group:

Licensing

The opinion issued for Design and Operational Effectiveness were moderate and the impact on Annual Opinion is positive.  As a result of testing, five medium priority findings and three low priority findings were identified. The medium findings relate to:

·       some documentation required to issue a license was not evidenced,

·       The public register on the Council’s website did not work or was incomplete

·       Dashboards displaying the status of a licence application did not provide up to date information

·       There was no Scheme of Delegation for the Business Support Unit to undertake licence reviews

·       Some discrepancies in the reconciliations of income between Uniform and General Ledger

Management actions were agreed in respect of these findings.

Mr Rubins explained that there were four further audits currently completing or due to commence; Cyber, Anti-Fraud Training, Pet and Dog Control and Business Grants, adding that he anticipates presenting these reports at the next Governance Scrutiny Group, subject to no further interruptions relating to Covid.

Members questioned the status of the audit for Retention and Recruitment and why no Terms of Reference had been agreed, adding was there a potential issue building here. The Executive Manager – Finance and Corporate Services advised that the Executive Management Team stated that there had been staff turnover in Human Resources which had led to the delay. The audit should still be completed.

It was RESOLVED that the Group note the final progress report for 2020/21.