Council and councillors

To receive Report No.104/2020 from the Head of Internal Audit

Report No.104/2020 was received from the Head of Internal Audit. The purpose of the report was to provide Members with a proposed plan of Internal Audit work for the remainder of the financial year for formal review and approval.

During discussion the following points were noted:

·       Because of the new working environment there were additional risk areas identified and days had been allocated to them.

·       12 days had been allocated to the schools thematic audit which Councillor Waller felt was too many; she also questioned whether the audit should be postponed to when schools were in more of a routine. Councillor Razzell disagreed and felt that it was vital that this stayed as it was because of very real concerns over safeguarding.

·       Councillor Woodley felt that the proposed audit plan in its entirety should be reviewed in light of the current climate and change of circumstances. Active engagement by all departments, with internal audit picking up the recommendations, would enable the Council to give assurances to residents. Councillor Woodley would also prefer that this was done in year rather than looking at it retrospectively in two years’ time.

·       Mr Della Rocca informed the Committee that the following week LLR were collating from across the area, the lessons learnt from dealing with Covid.  This would include an analysis of how RCC had engaged with colleagues across the county as well as of the actions the Council had taken. Mr Della Rocca agreed to share these findings with the Committee.

·       The Audit Plan had a number of purposes which included giving the auditor the right range of assurances on items such as procurement and compliance. Each of these audits would have a Covid slant and look at how they had changed because of Covid, however, as it was not possible to audit everything, there would still be processes that had been impacted by Covid that were not audited.

·       Ms Ashley Caunt, the Internal Auditor was comfortable that the Plan submitted allowed for sufficient days and capacity to give the right level of assurance.

·       Councillor Razzell argued that, as it was likely that the Council would be asked to audit the response to Covid 19, then it would seem sensible to do it now.

·       Mr Della Rocca suggested that members might wish to commission a separate piece of work from the auditors but that if they did so then the appropriate terms of reference must be defined.

·       Members queried whether it should be a review rather than an audit and requested that the Chair have further conversations with the Internal Auditor to put together a proposal to address this issue.

·       The internal Auditor asked the Committee to agree the Plan in principle with the understanding that it was not set in stone and would be continually reviewed.

A recorded vote on approving the proposed audit plan for 2020/21 in principle was taken and the vote was unanimously in favour.

RESOLVED:

1.    That the Committee APPROVE the proposed audit plan allocations for 2020/21 in principle, subject to on-going review.

2.    That the Internal Auditor, in consultation with the Chair, brings a proposal to the next meeting of the Committee to look at how the response to Covid-19 could be audited.