Agenda item

To consider the report.

This report provided an update on Internal Audit activity since the last meeting, including the outcomes of completed Internal Audit work, especially where there was limited or no assurance over the governance, or risk management, or control arrangements of those activities reviewed.

Members of the Audit Committee were asked to note the position of the 2024-25 Internal Audit Plan and consider any significant governance, risk and control weaknesses identified in the report.

The report stated, while the Council had arrangements in place during 2023/24 to regularly update and report on the scale of its financial challenge, it had not moved quickly enough to develop a pipeline of savings plans and other mitigations to fully address the financial challenges.

While a Financial Strategy had been developed to deliver savings over the medium term and the transformation programme had been brought forward, the Council had to rely on £81.4m of one-off resources to balance the 2024/25 budget, including £36.8m of reserves and £36.9m in government support.  Reliance of this scale on one-off resources represented a significant weakness in arrangements to ensure financial sustainability as reserves were eroded and no longer available to provide financial resilience and one-off measures impacted on the budget gap in future years.

The April 2024 Medium-Term Financial Strategy provided a financial strategy to produce a range of savings from £47m to £116m but there were significant risks in delivering the scale of savings required and if the budget gap for 2025/26 was not fully bridged through recurring savings, there was a risk further reserve contributions or urgent cuts to services would be required. 

Committee Members then raised several points for discussion including:

·       The direction of travel to recover auditors’ assurance – Members were advised that although good, there were still some pieces of work to complete and that a stable workforce was an essential internal control. The auditors liaise with Service Directors to ensure nothing falls off the radar.

·       Concern over the pace of work – Members were advised that although the pace needed to be quicker, it was recognised that the staffing restructure had a direct impact on this. The Chair added that there was a plan to start calling in Officers where there was a lack of progress particularly on P1 actions, to explain the reasons for the delayed completion of these actions.

·       The increased amount of flooding due to climate change – The auditor advised that the flood response had not been included in the climate change work. The Chair requested that going forward, flooding should be included in the report.

·       Concern that some items seem to have stalled at 90% complete for some time – Members were advised a deeper look into the reason for this would need to be carried out.

·       Have SENDs (Special Educational Needs) been audited? – Members were advised that a lot of work had been done on EHCP (Education, Health and Care Plans) and an audit update would be provided on this later in the year.

The Chair then read the recommendations and Members were all happy to note the report.

RESOLVED

The Audit Committee agreed to note the position of the 2024-25 Internal Plan.