Meeting documents

To consider this report.

David Hill, CEO of Southwest Audit Partnershippresented the Report of Internal Audit Activity 21/22. He began by informing members that there are some similarities in Items 5 and 6 but these reports would not usually be presented in the same month. Due to a delayit is necessary forboth items to be presented to the committee together.  

He highlighted some key points from the report including: 

·                     Page 38 shows an overview of the audit plan and summary of opinions given, 2 reasonable assurance opinion, 3 limited assurance opinions and 3 follow up audits  

·                     Page 41 shows theaction tracker of recommendations and management actions. There are 53 overdue actions and 8 of those are priority 1. He added that since the tracker has been in place there has been a better response on management actions with service managers.  

·                     Page 43 to 45 is a summary of limited assurance reviews  

·                     Page 46 shows the healthy organisation review.This review is about identifying key themes for the organisation to demonstrate a healthy organisation.He added that this is reviewed every 2 years.  

·                     47 to 49 shows more details of the 3 follow up audits.  

At the end of the introductionmembers were invited to ask questions and the following questions were raised. 

·                     Cllr Chilcott agreed that there were many duplicationsin the two reports and commented that some members may have found this frustrating.  

·                     Page 44 - Cllr Chilcott asked about education safeguarding complaints.The actions are due by Sept 22 so would thisbe carried forward into future reports. The officer confirmed that this would be the case. 

·                     Page 45 – Cllr Chilcott asked about transport budgets and the overspend on the budget. The Cllr felt that it is not acceptable that these actions are not due to be implemented until September 23. David Hill informed members that the timeframes in this report are a joint agreement between the auditors and the service managers and are based on what is reasonable. Jason Vaughan added that the transport actions had been identified as a result of the recentMTFP financial situation(budget gap). He suggested that he would review these actions and make sure that any actions that could be brought forwardwill be.  

·                     Cllr Davies asked about DBS checks for members and when this would happen because he felt this was very important for the councillor role.In response Cllr Liz Leyshon, who was in attendance virtually)informed members that there is now a budget working group, and also that Cllr Tessa munt is exploring the situation with DBS, and the levels of checks required for members.Cllr Tessa Munt (who was in attendance virtually)reassured members that she was indeed looking at DBS and e-DBS checks for Cllrs. She confirmed that 43 Cllrs have e-DBS (enhanced DBS)because of their connections with children’s and vulnerable adults’ services.Cllr Chilcott added that online DBS checks for all councillors would be very welcomed.Cllr Munt added that all Cllrs should have basic DBS, and asked if it might be a good idea for all councillors to bring their original documentation to the next meeting of full council to avoid having to make a special trip into County Hall with the required documentation  

·                     CllrLewis queried follow-up audits and in particular Page 49 Appendix c - the Childrens’ Education Health and Care Plans. The report states the intention to cease monitoring of implementation of these actions when they are still 3 in progress. He asked if the committee were comfortable that these actions are no longer monitored. In response David hill advised that in this case, Priority 1 had been completed andPriority 2 was well underway. The lower-level priorities would now be up to the individual service managers to monitor. However, he asked if members would like an oversight of this monitoring as this could be done.  

·                     As a follow up to this Cllr Chilcott enquired as to how much work this monitoring would entail. The officer reassured the councillors that it would involve chasing service areas and obtaining evidence to confirm this has been done. Cllr Chilcott agreed that it would be wise for the internal audit to focus on the higher risk priorities.   

The committee accepted the report.