Agenda item

Steve Crabtree, Shared Head of Internal Audit, presented the annual report into the provision of the Internal Audit service for 2014/15 and the opinion of the Head of Internal Audit into the adequacy of governance, risk management and internal control arrangements. The Committee noted that the overall audit opinion for 2014/15 was that the Council had “adequate” and “effective” systems of internal control. Steve Crabtree explained that an assurance could never be absolute and it was not realistic for the Council to strive for a better result than “adequate”.

Human Resources/Staffing

The Committee was concerned that whilst the Council had sound policies in place for sickness absence management, these were “not always consistently applied by departments.”

Accounts Payable (Creditors)

The Committee noted that two assurances had been given for this audit. A “significant” rating had been given for the electronic process for procurement and a “limited assurance” for the manual process. In response to questioning the Principal Accountant Financial and Systems explained that orders for housing repairs were made using the Orchard system and these were then manually input into the Financial Management System for payment. The number of electronic procurements would greatly increase if the orders made on the Orchard system were included.

Shared Services

The Executive Director explained that shared services arrangements resulted in greater scrutiny as each individual authority conducted its own audit. The Committee noted that a joint governance committee could be set up in the future to manage the audit process for shared services.

BACS payments

Steve Crabtree agreed to circulate to the Committee details of the improvements that were required to ensure there were appropriate checks in place with regard to securely held data.

Housing repairs

The Committee noted that internal audit’s report into housing repairs was likely to be discussed at its next meeting. The Scrutiny and Overview Committee had examined the housing repairs contract the Council had with Mears.

Treasury managements

The Chairman and Committee congratulated the Principal Accountant Financial and Systems on the full assurance received for the audit on Treasury Management.

Corporate Governance Committee Effectiveness

Steve Crabtree reported that the Committee had operated effectively during the last year. He suggested that the Committee consider:

·         Receiving annual reports on how the Council tackles fraud and corruption.

·         Producing annual reports on the work of the Committee.

After discussion, the Committee decided that its existing level of reporting was adequate and that the return-on-effort for producing and additional reports could not be justified.

Community Chest Grants

A Committee member expressed concern at the audit report’s finding that there was “no formal documentation to assist in the decision making process” and asked where the evidence was that decision making on the awarding of grants was consistent. After discussion the Committee was satisfied on this point, and noted that decisions regarding the awarding of, or withholding, community chest grants were fully recorded in the minutes of the Leader’s Portfolio Holder meeting.

Depot

The Executive Director explained that the Committee would receive the audit report into the works of the waste service. The Council had entered into a shared service arrangement with Cambridge City Council and separate governance and reporting lines were scrutinising this.

Details of previous audits

The Committee noted that whilst it could be misleading to include benchmark data from previous audits because the scope of audits changed, it would be useful if internal audit included previous recommendations made in the past.

The Committee thanked Steve Crabtree and Magen Powell for their work over the last year and for including more detailed information in their report, as requested.

The Committee NOTED the report.