Issue - meetings

Annual Internal Audit Report

Meeting: 30/06/2022 - Audit and Risk Management Committee (Item 113)

113 ANNUAL INTERNAL AUDIT REPORT 2021/22 pdf icon PDF 701 KB

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Minutes:

FSD22042

 

The Head of Audit and Assurance presented the Annual Internal Audit Report for 2021/2022. Members were asked to note the report, together with the Head  of Audit and Assurance’s opinion for 2021/2022 on the overall systems of risk management, governance and control.

 

The Head of Audit and Assurance stated that her opinion of the Council’s systems of risk management governance and control was ‘Reasonable’. The report broke down and mapped the data in various ways.

 

The Head of Audit and Assurance said that upon examination of the Risk Registers and ‘Making Bromley Even Better’ ambitions, it was clear that some areas had received more coverage than others. The areas not covered as well would be the focus of internal audit and the internal audit plan for 2022/2023.

 

The second part of the report concerned internal audit itself, as Internal Audit was required to have a quality assurance improvement programme. The reason for the improvement programme was to provide assurance to members of the Audit and Risk Management Committee that the information being provided by Internal Audit was reliable. It was a requirement of professional standards that every five years there had to be an external quality assessment of the service. The last one was undertaken about 2015/2016, so an assessment was overdue.

 

The Head of Audit and Assurance explained that the independent external quality assessment had to be undertaken by someone who was suitably qualified and had relevant experience. It would mean that Bromley’s Internal Audit Team would be assessed against all the relevant professional standards. This was due to take place in July and the outcome would be reported to the next meeting of the Committee. The Head of Audit and Assurance had undertaken her own assessment in the meantime and had assessed the Service as being 75% fully compliant and 25% partially compliant. She had drafted an action plan to address these gaps which was provided as an appendix to the report. This would be updated until the relevant actions were closed. The Chairman wondered if the Head of Audit and Assurance had enough staff to deal with these action plans, as well as the normal internal audits. The Head of Audit and Assurance responded and said most of the actions would be for her to undertake as Head of Service.

 

A Member raised the issue of some staff not being confident in auditing IT risks. The report had mentioned further training as a possible solution, but the Member wondered if what was required was a recruitment issue and that it may be prudent to hire an IT auditor. The Head of Audit and Assurance  commented that it was always difficult to retain staff like this, as once trained up, they often got better offers elsewhere. 

 

A discussion took place with respect to SEN placements. Internal Audit had assessed how the Council could achieve the best value for money in this regard, whilst maintaining its statutory duties. The Council was currently experiencing a £5m overspend in this  ...  view the full minutes text for item 113