To receive Report No. 70/2019 from the Strategic Director for Resources.

Report No. 70/2019 was received from the Strategic Director for Resources, the purpose of which was to note the work completed to date in respect of the external audit for 2018/19 and to comment on the risk assessment.

Mr John Gregory, Grant Thornton, introduced the report and provided the following summary of the Progress Report:

The Progress Report at Appendix A provided a summary of progress on delivery of the audit and confirmed that there were no findings to report from the interim audit of financial statements.  The second part of the report contained an update on topical issues and also posed some challenge questions.

The Risk Assessment at Appendix 2 provides the opportunity for two-way communication between the Audit and Risk Committee and the auditors.  The report detailed the management processes in place, as advised by the Council’s Management, the Committee were requested to provide feedback on any areas where they believed there to be inconsistencies.

During discussion the following points were noted:

i.      The auditors only had responsibility to identify material fraud, the management response confirmed that there had been no material instances of fraud identified.

RESOLVED

The Committee:

1)  NOTED the progress report from external audit.

2)  AGREED that the risk assessment completed by management accords with its understanding.