Issue - meetings

This report sets out the Internal Audit Charter and the Audit Plan for 2026/27. Approval of these documents by the Audit & Governance Committee is a requirement of the Global Internal Audit Standards (GIAS).

Some minor amendments have been made to the Internal Audit Charter (Appendix A) which includes an updated Internal Audit Strategy and an updated Data Analytics Strategy.

The final Internal Audit Plan for 2026/27 has been produced which includes some very minor amendments from the version provided to the Audit & Governance Committee in January 2025 alongside further details on how the resource will be allocated as described in the Core Audit Plan 2026/27 (Appendix B), Provisional audits for 2026/27 (Appendix C) and the Anti-Fraud & Corruption Plan 2026/27 (Appendix E).

The proposed 2026/27 Internal Audit Plan approach has been designed to enable the Head of Internal Audit to provide an annual conclusion on the Councils’ governance, risk management and control arrangements as required by the GIAS.

The allocated budget resource for 2026/27 is considered adequate to deliver the Internal Audit Charter and Audit Plan for 2026/27.