Issue - meetings

This report details progress made on delivery of the 2024/25 Audit Plan for 4^th quarter.

NOTE – due to Committee dates, only January and February are included in the report. March 2025 will be included in the Q1 2025/26 progress report to Audit & Governance Committee in July.

The report highlights that:

·       4 audit assignments have been finalised, including 3 ‘Reasonable’ audit opinions and 1 ‘Follow Up’;

·       30 audit assignments arein progress, including 7 at draft report stage;

·       Progress against the audit plan is on track and will be materially delivered to support the Chief Internal Auditor’s annual audit opinion;

·       There are no outstanding recommendations which require escalating to this Committee.

The Council Tax Single Person Discount pilot undertaken by Internal Audit has now been completed, resulting in a total yield of £672,733. This project is now being undertaken as ‘business as usual’ by the Income Maximisation and Compliance Team, who have achieved an addition council tax yield of £71,352 for the first three months.

The Head of Audit and Management Assurance presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'D' to these Minutes in the Minute Book.

Progress on delivering the 2024/25 Audit Plan was going well and remained on track in terms of the Chief Internal Auditor’s annual audit opinion. Recruitment was underway to replace one audit manager post. It was noted that only updates for January and February were included in the report, with March to be carried over to the next Quarter 1 2025/2 report in July. The report provided details of four audit assignments which had been finalised and 30 auditassignments which werein progress, including seven at draft report stage. There were no outstanding recommendations which required escalating to the Committee. The report also provided a response to the queries raised by members on the partial internal audit reports issued in Quarter 3. It was noted that the Council Tax Single Person Discount project had now moved to the Income Maximisation and Compliance Team which had achieved an additional yield of £71,352 in the first three months. The Committee would be kept updated on these figures.

The Head of Audit and Management Assurance was asked why a substantial assurance audit opinion was not sought when only a reasonable assurance was given without any recommendations. He explained that this would depend on the scope, however the amount of additional resources required to seek a substantial assurance when a reasonable assurance was acceptable was not cost beneficial. He was also asked why some audits were still at the scoping stage in February and why the completion date had been extended to May? He explained that where an audit crossed into the next financial year it was treated as an ‘in year’ audit with the final report aimed for completion by the end of May. The number of audits outstanding was typical for this stage of the financial year with shorter audits dealt with in the last quarter. Quarterly reports to the committee provided members with regular updates.

The Audit Manager responded to a question about why the ‘Partnerships and Strategy - KAF overview’ audit had been removed from audit plan. She advised that the service director no longer existed and staff had been moved to another service area which was already under review. This had not been referenced in the report as it was not universally known at the time of writing.

RESOLVED that Audit & Governance Committee note progress made andissues arising onthe deliveryof the2024/25 InternalAudit Plan.

Voting: Nem. Con.