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29 Annual Head of Internal Audit Opinion PDF 445 KB
Additional documents:
Minutes:
The Committee received a report from the Head of the Shared
Internal Audit Service regarding his opinion on the overall adequacy and
effectiveness of the organisation’s internal control environment, governance,
and the risk management framework.
The Head of Shared Internal Audit Service said the following
in response to Members’ questions and questions from the Independent Person:
i.
The use of spreadsheets when carrying out gas
safety checks had been highlighted as a risk from the audit report; this had been
addressed by the introduction of a management system which was part of Orchard
Asset Management software that is planned to go live around December 2020.
ii.
Currently the spreadsheets were still being
updated manually but were now being done daily.
iii.
Acknowledged that not being able to inspect
properties due to COVID-19 was a hazard. Those properties did have future
appointments in place.
iv.
Safeguarding was looked at on a regular basis,
working with external agencies did have an increased risk and would be recognised
in the auditplan going forward.
v.
Would take forward the matter of water usage as
part of the overall risk appraisal.
vi.
Was not aware of any projects funded by disabled
facility grants which had been delayed due to COVID-19.
vii.
An annual review was undertaken to provide
assurance that grant funding (allocated as part of the Better Care Fund) had
been spent in accordance with the scheme conditions. A sample of applications
were checked from the annual funding allocation.
The Chief Executive, the council’s safeguarding champion and
chair of the corporate safeguarding group, wanted to give the reassurance that
significant work had been done in the past with volunteers as emphasised in
previous audits. The mutual aid groups were slightly different as they were in
a hybrid territory being their own entities. The council’s relationship was an
enabling one rather than managing; going forward the council needed to explore
how safeguarding would be brought into those relationships.
Resolved (unanimously) to:
Note the contents of the Annual Head of Internal Audit Opinion.