Issue - meetings

The purpose of this report is to: -

·                Present a summary of the internal audit work undertaken during 2021/22 from which the opinion on governance, risk and internal control is derived.

·                Provide an opinion on the overall adequacy and effectiveness of the Council’s governance, risk and control arrangements including any qualifications to that opinion.

·                Draw attention to any issues that need to be considered for inclusion in the Annual Governance Statement.

·                Compare work undertaken with that which was planned and summarise performance.

·                Comment on compliance with the Public Sector Internal Audit Standards (PSIAS) and Code of Ethics.

·                Comment on the results of the internal quality assurance programme.

·                Confirm the organisational independence of internal audit

·                Review the performance of Internal Audit against the current Internal Audit Charter.

The Head of the Internal Audit Consortium introduced a report which presented a summary of the internal audit work undertaken during 2021/22 from which the opinion on governance, risk and internal control is derived. The report also provided an opinion on the overall adequacy and effectiveness of the Council’s governance, risk and control arrangements including any qualifications to that opinion.

The 2021/22 Operational Audit Plan was originally approved by this Committee on the 11th March 2021. In November 2021 the Committee approved a revised plan with a reduced number of days. The number of audit days were reduced due to a failure to recruit a Senior Auditor and the continued redeployment of the current Senior Auditor to business grants work. Subsequently an Auditor was appointed. For operational reasons a few of the areas in the revised plan were supplemented by alternative areas.

Throughout 2021/22 the Senior Internal Audit continued to have a large involvement in Business Grants, this had a detrimental impact on the completion of the Operational Audit Plan. In order to be able to complete sufficient work to be able to provide an unlimited opinion, work on the 21/22 plan continued into June 2022. The Committee were informed that this was predicted to have a knock on effect on completion of the 2022/23 approved plan.

It was moved by Councillor Steve Flitter, seconded by Councillor Mark Wakeman and

RESOLVED (Unanimously)

That the Internal Audit Annual Report for 2021/22 be accepted.

The Chairman declared the motion CARRIED.