Agenda item

Report of Internal Audit Manager

Committee received the report of the Internal Audit Manager to advise Members of the latest position regarding the 2010/11 Internal Audit Plan and to seek Members’ approval for a change to the Plan and endorsement of a future schedule of audit work.

It was reported that the 2011/12 Internal Audit Plan had been approved by Audit Committee on 29^th June 2011.  The report was based on the monitoring position up to 31^st August 2011.  A detailed monitoring report was attached at Appendix A to the report.  The position at that date was shown in the table below.

Members were advised that the monitoring position took into account ongoing and planned work commitments.  Overall, current commitments totalled 538 days, compared with the original plan of 685 days.  It was now estimated that 695 days could be delivered, giving an uncommitted resource of 167 days, including the general contingency of 40 days and a balance of 21 days set as contingency for investigation work.

Committee noted that paragraph 2.3 of the report reported that within the main programme of assurance work, the audits of core financial systems and, to a lesser extent, the Revenues and Benefits Shared Service, had exceeded the original plan.  This reflected the additional work required in a new approach to these audits and a wider than normal programme, covering all significant systems in this year.  It was proposed to meet the shortfall in these areas from the additional 10 days  deliverable with the balance (29 days) by re-directing resources from the ‘Core Management Arrangements’ section of the assurance programme.  This was reflected under the ‘Proposed Plan’ column of the table above and Members were asked to approve the change.

It was reported that audits of the Revenues and Benefits Shared Services’ systems, as operated by Preston City Council, would form the section’s major work programme in the near future, which would result in reports to Preston City Council’s management and Audit Committee.  The work was currently estimated to take 40 days, and efficiencies were anticipated in auditing the shared service arrangements resulting in a reduced number of audit days. 

Members noted paragraph 2.6 of the report, which advised that a schedule of further audits for the remainder of the year was currently being drawn up in consultation with Management Team and an update would be provided at the meeting.  Potential topics identified at the time of writing were:

• Shared Services arrangements with Lancashire County Council;
• Environmental Services’ enforcement;
• Changes in the Housing Revenue Account;
• Winter maintenance arrangements;
• Complaints policy and procedures.

It was proposed by Councillor Knight and seconded by Councillor Newman-Thompson:

“(1)      That the current monitoring position be noted.

(2)        That the proposed change to the 2011/12 Internal Audit Plan, as set out in paragraph 2.3 of the report, be approved.

(3)               That the schedule of potential audits for the remainder of 2011/12, as set out in paragraph 2.6 of the report, be approved.”

Upon being put to the vote, Members voted unanimously in favour of the proposition, whereupon the Chairman declared the proposal to be clearly carried.

Resolved:

(1)        That the current monitoring position be noted.

(2)        That the proposed change to the 2011/12 Internal Audit Plan, as set out in paragraph 2.3 of the report, be approved.

(3)        That the schedule of potential audits for the remainder of 2011/12, as set out in paragraph 2.6 of the report, be approved.