Agenda item

The Head of Corporate Resources introduced the report, he apologised for the following typos in the report;

i.              page 94, first sentence para 6.1 should read “ Only 74% of the non-school internal assurance work planned to be delivered in the year was finalised at the

ii.            end of May by the contractor (compared to 87% in the prior year)”.

iii.           Para 7.7, 3^rd sentence should read “For each change, the HIA will agree and report the changes to the audit panel”.

Mr Robinson asked whether the delay in implementing some of the recommendations, was because of the loss of management capacity. The Head of Corporate Resources stated that this was the case on occasion as when staff resources were reduced some recommendations were left unattended, and because officers believed there was risk involved, follow- up work was being done. It was noted that with the new financial system underway, the risks involved could be greater.

The Head of Corporate Resources stated that with the core financial system in place, it is hoped would result in fewer financial recommendations

Mr King commented that he had asked in a previous meeting why nothing had been done about the 13 outstanding recommendations within the Third Party Access to IT System. The Head of Corporate Resources said that some of them were partially completed but they have now been re-opened. Much of the IT focus has been on clearing Public Sector Network requirements which impact on IT system security. It was noted that there were some management delay, and when audit officers had not heard from IT officers they had assumed that they had agreed with the recommendations.

Panel members were informed that there had been a lot of issues with the IT provision, which is outsourced. The Head of Corporate Resources informed Panel members that another reason for the problems could be that the head of IT had recently retired. Audit Panel members asked if there was something they could do to assist audit officers, to ensure managers implement audit recommendations. The Head of Corporate Resources said that Panel Members could continue to invite managers to future meetings to explain why they were having problems implementing audit recommendations. Councillor Slater said that this could be done for Managers with recurring issues.

Councillor Slater asked why there had not been plans that could be used to drive efficiency and effective work within the IT section. The Head of Corporate Resources said that there was an IT Strategy being prepared which included benchmarking with other authorities. The installation of Windows 7 would give the council some structural base to enable further improvements.

Councillor Ingleby raised his concerns over the number of deferred and cancelled reviews, and asked whether there was any intention of running some of these programmes to identify variances in order to narrow any impending risk. It was noted that there were software available to run business interrogation, but it would need to be done regularly for it to be effective.

The Head of Corporate Resources said that the contractor had not been able to do the work consistently. Councillor Ingleby asked whether this was because officers were not confident to do the work. Panel members asked whether capability could be an issue. The Head of Corporate Resources said that budgets had shrunk and officers had to do things differently to deliver services. It was noted that an update on progress with the internal audit service would be brought to the next meeting in September.

Mr King asked whether the table on page 24 stating that improvement was required for Acceptance of Gifts and Hospitality, implied that there had been failures in the past. The Head of Corporate Resources said that this was not the case, but that there had been a request to strengthen the process, and it was being looked at on a regular basis, and if there were any potential conflict this would be reported to the Audit Panel. The Head of Corporate Resources said that the wording would be looked at.

RESOLVED      that the report be noted