Issue - meetings

FSD 21013

The Internal Audit Plan had been affected by the Covid pandemic. It was difficult to know going forward what would be the ‘new normal’. This being the case, the Internal Audit Plan was more of a ‘statement of intent’. The Internal Audit Team would need to be flexible and agile. The current recovery audit plan had been affected by the Covid lockdown because staff had been seconded to work on pandemic related duties and other staff were providing assurance and anti fraud checks on business support grants. The Head of Audit and Assurance explained that the Internal Audit Plan had gone for review to the Corporate Leadership Team (CLT) and that the CLT had approved the plan. Some work was being rolled forward and the Internal Audit Team had been  looking at new areas of risk with CLT. More government grant relief money was due to come in and this would need to be processed and assurance provided to government.

The Head of Internal Audit and Assurance updated members regarding the Internal Audit Charter, explaining that the Charter outlined the status and authority of internal audit. There had on this occasion been some specific guidance provided with respect to the contents of the Charter which made allowances for the pandemic.

A Member enquired as to how much work undertaken by the Audit Team had been related to the Covid Pandemic, and how much resource was likely to be allocated to Covid related work going forward. The Head of Audit and Assurance did not have the information to hand and estimated that over the previous year 60% of the work undertaken by the Audit Team had been Covid related. He said that he would check on this figure and update the Committee. Going forward, out of 881 planned audit days, it was estimated that 145 days would be taken up by work that was Covid related. It was hoped that the Team would be working on ‘business as usual’ by June. The Head of Audit and Assurance complimented the work that had been undertaken by Liberata’s Technology Team in designing appropriate systems. 

The Vice Chairman asked (given the extra workload) if the current staffing levels of the Internal Audit Team were sufficient. The Head of Audit and Assurance answered that the Internal Audit Team were coping for now, but the position on a long term basis was not sustainable.

It was noted that the services of Mazars had not been called upon in the last financial year. They had their own core contracts with councils that did not have their own internal audit staff. The Head of Audit and Assurance clarified that he had a budget of approximately £16k that could be used as required to support the Internal Audit Team, and that he had been in discussions with Mazars about the possibility of them undertaking 2 pieces of work for LBB.

A Member  agreed that the Internal Audit Team should use the concept of ‘risk’ to decide where  ...  view the full minutes text for item 66