Agenda item - Internal Audit and Counter Fraud Quarter 2 Progress Report 2021/22

Report of the Chief Finance Officer

1)             That the Committee note the report and consider any further action required in response to the issues raised.

38.1      The Committee considered a report of the Chief Finance Officer that provided an update on all internal audit and counter fraud activity completed during quarter 2 (2021/22), including a summary of all key audit findings.  The report also includes an update on the performance of the Internal Audit service during the period.

38.2      In response to a question from Councillor Peltzer Dunn, the Audit Manager explained that Internal Audit had been ambitious in some of its recent audits by using data analytics to access the entire organisation and so get a big picture perspective. It appeared that there was a lot of procurement activity across the organisation that wasn’t captured centrally nor was it easy to extract this information from the council’s financial systems and in turn, this impacted best judgement on an assessment of the value of that spend. The Audit Manager added that actions had been agreed with the Procurement service, but many hundreds of staff undertook procurement matters and there was a wider action to disseminate knowledge and skills as well as having the systems to collate all of this information. Some actions identified were straightforward however, others would require investment in the council’s information systems. The phase 2 part of the audit was in the final stages of completion.

38.3      Councillor Peltzer Dunn expressed his concern with the findings of the audit and believed a report should be submitted to the next committee responding to the issues. Other committee members similarly expressed concerns and endorsed the request for a report to the next meeting.

38.4      Resolved-  That the Committee note the report and consider any further action required in response to the issues raised.