Agenda item

Report by Pricewaterhousecoopers, the Council’s internal auditors. A presentation will also be made at the meeting.

(To follow)

The Chairman welcomed Caroline Turner and Jon Widdison from Pricewaterhousecoopers (PWC), the Council’s internal auditors to the meeting. They gave a presentation to Panel Members on: planning for the audit process, carrying out the audit, reporting mechanisms and a six-monthly update.

PWC had produced a Strategic Plan stating the work they would look to undertake over a three-year period. The Plan had been compiled by the assessment of corporate risks, reviews of council plans and ambitions, interviews with officers and Members and following up work of the previous year. The audit would provide assurance, evaluate internal control systems, appraise policies and procedures and examine accounting records and risk assessment. The audit would draw the attention of management to deficiencies within service areas and duplication and inefficiencies within services.

An annual Operational Plan was produced based on the Strategic Plan. This would draw up terms of reference for audit work with officers. The Operational Plan stipulated work for the coming year, the types of review necessary and a projected timetable to allow the programme of work to progress as conveniently as possible. Terms of reference were agreed with officers up-front, by reviewing objectives, scoping work, identifying key contacts and planning reporting arrangements. Findings will be reported using a number of templates and include follow-up work of the recommendations from the previous year and list detailed findings and recommendations, while highlighting examples of good practice.

Reports issued to date have included a Housing and Rent follow-up review, a Contracts and Tendering follow-up review, a Cleansing follow-up and Planned Maintenance follow-up. Members were asked what form they would like future consultation to take. Members decided that they would like a biannual written summary report where more information would be provided on request, with attendance of PWC representatives at meetings, to allow members to ask questions. One would be a halfway report while the other would be a reflection on what had been achieved and a forward plan. An Audit Review Update would be included as an agenda item.

A general IT review looking at general controls for all systems had taken place. More specific reviews could be done in the future, including an assessment of the new accountancy software package. It would not be possible to do a full audit of the software until it had been implemented.

Members discussed recommendations that were consciously not adopted. There were two ways in which recommendations were not implemented: officers either agreed to stand the risk of non-implementation or officers agreed with recommendations but did not enact them.

PWC were assessing risks identified by their predecessor in a priority-based order. Members of the DSP felt that when Members were consulted for audit reviews, there should be a selection from across the Council; consultation should not be exclusively Executive Members. Members had not had access to any of the review reports produced and requested that these should be made available for them to view.

CONCLUSION:

1.                  To have a biannual Audit update included on the agenda of a future meeting with a summary report;

2.                  To invite representatives from Pricewaterhousecoopers to the biannual reviews to answer any questions.