Issue - meetings

The Southern Internal Audit Partnership (SIAP) presented a progress report on the Council’s internal audit as at the end of August 2024.  The report included:

·         An analysis of live audit reviews that still had management actions pending or overdue.

·         A rolling work programme outlining audit activity for 2024/25.

SIAP confirmed the following points:

·         All audits for quarter 1 and quarter 2 of the 2024/25 internal audit plan had been started.

·         The number of overdue actions remained low (13). SIAP continued to monitor these actions with Officers through to completion.

·         It was confirmed that the Housing Allocations audit had now also reached the ‘final report’ stage and had been issued with a ‘reasonable assurance’ opinion.

·         An additional draft report had also been issued for Asset Management - Tenancy and Income Management.

·         There had been no additional changes to the internal audit plan to date.

In response to questions from the Council’s Independent Person, the following issues were clarified:

·         Delays in management responses, caused by a management restructure at the Council, had resulted in the delay of the production of management actions for the Health and Safety report. Committee members had been provided with an additional document setting out an overview of the current progress on the outstanding Health and Safety audit actions.

·         It was agreed that additional information could be provided by SIAP in the comments section of the rolling work programme to identify why there had been delays in final audit reports being issued.

·         Currently, no commentary is provided in respect of follow up reports as no assurance opinion is provided. SIAP confirmed they were content to provide additional information in the report to update committee on how management actions had been implemented.

R E S O L V E D – that the committee noted the Internal Audit Progress Report – August 2024