Meeting documents

To consider this report.

The Chair invited the Council’s internal auditor from the South West Audit Partnership (SWAP) to introduce her report that provided details on the last progress report for the 2020/2021 audit plan. The update report highlighted that since the last update report there had been no audits completed that had identified a high corporate risk.

Members attention was drawn to page 98 and a limited assurance opinion following an audit of the Council’s debt management team to verify the framework of management of debt recovery. It was noted that the pandemic had had an impact on the debt recovery work of the Council as it had focused on business continuity and for a period had suspended debt recovery as resources and staff were reallocated.  As some of the issues had been highlighted in an earlier audit the new recommendations had been sent directly to Service Finance Managers.  It was noted that the audit report would also be considered at the July meeting of the Governance Board which would provide an opportunity to raise awareness of the remaining issues to senior staff across the Council.

Appendix C was highlighted as this provided an overview of a baseline assessment of maturity in relation to fraud and assessing anti-fraud controls at an organisational level and am amber rating had been provided. Appendix D provided an overview of a review into Cyber security and the findings and conclusions were noted. There was a brief discussion about security awareness and training, and it was noted that there would be a full audit undertaken as part of the 2021/22 Audit Plan and Members requested that a briefing be provided for Members on this topic by SWAP’s IT audit specialist.

The update report was accepted.

The Chair invited the Council’s internal auditor from the South West Audit Partnership (SWAP) to introduce her report that provided details on the last progress report for the 2020/2021 audit plan. The update report highlighted that since the last update report there had been no audits completed that had identified a high corporate risk.

The attention of Members was drawn to page 98 and a limited assurance opinion following an audit of the Council’s debt management team to verify the framework of management of debt recovery. It was noted that the pandemic had had an impact on the debt recovery work of the Council as it had focused on business continuity and for a period had suspended debt recovery as resources and staff were reallocated.  As some of the issues had been highlighted in an earlier audit the new recommendations had been sent directly to Service Finance Managers.  It was noted that the audit report would also be considered at the July meeting of the Governance Board which would provide an opportunity to raise awareness of the remaining issues to senior staff across the Council.

Appendix C was highlighted as this provided an overview of a baseline assessment of maturity in relation to fraud and assessing anti-fraud controls at an organisational level and am amber rating had been provided. Appendix D provided an overview of a review into Cyber security and the findings and conclusions were noted. There was a brief discussion about security awareness and training, and it was noted that there would be a full audit undertaken as part of the 2021/22 Audit Plan and Members requested that a briefing be provided for Members on this topic by SWAP’s IT audit specialist.

The update report was accepted.