Issue - meetings

The Head of Internal Audit and Assurance explained that in the first part of the year members of the Audit Team had been seconded because of the Covid  pandemic to work in other areas, this included working with the Shielding Team to support vulnerable people. As the number of Covid cases had dropped and restrictions eased, members of the Audit Team had been relieved of these duties, and so the Audit Team had commenced work on the internal audit recovery plan which had been shared with the CLT.

The Audit Team had been undertaking work supporting the processing of business support grants, and later with respect to the test and trace support payment scheme, and variations of support to business as a result of the three-tier coronavirus alert system. The role of Internal Audit was to advise on controls within the system and to perform assurance work when it was functioning. The Head of Audit and Assurance  informed the Committee that two members of the Audit Team had been notified that because of the recent rise in Covid cases, they were being put on notice that it was likely they would be required to return back to resourcing the Covid Support Team. The Chairman and the Committee thanked the members of the Audit Team who had been seconded to Covid Support Work. 

The Chairman highlighted Section 3.210 of the report which referred to work on local restriction grant payments that was due to take into effect, if and when the borough went into ‘Tier 3’. The Chairman mentioned that because Bromley had  now moved from ‘Tier 3’ into more of a full lockdown, would those services now  be triggered. The Head of Audit and Assurance responded that the Audit Team were waiting for new guidance which was expected over the next few days.

The Head of Internal Audit and Assurance explained that members of the Audit

A Member commented that he had been in contact with the Director of Finance to ask about fraud related to Covid business grants. The Member felt it necessary to draw the Committee’s attention to the associated response from the Director of Finance, which was dated, 12th of October 2020. It was noted in the response that 3500 payments had been made and only seven of those were cases involving possible fraud which needed further investigation. This number was very low. It was the case that because of controls introduced by the Head of Audit and Assurance and his team, these controls were now recognised nationally as examples of best practice.

The Member had also been in contact with the Portfolio Holder for Resources and Contracts who commented that those councils that had initially been applauded in Parliament for the rapid distribution of money were now having to claw back money that had been paid in error. The Committee expressed their thanks to the Audit Team for their sterling work in this area, and for the fact that the work was of such high quality  ...  view the full minutes text for item 56