Issue - meetings

(a)       That the report be noted;

(b)       That the Internal Audit Manager provide details on the number of recommendations made and how many had not yet been implemented;

(c)        That the Internal Audit Manager ask the relevant Head of Service to provide details on the estimated implementation date of the Contract Procedure Rules and how any risks would be covered, before the next meeting of the Committee; and

(d)       That from the June 2013 meeting, the appropriate and accountable Head of Service/Director may be invited to appear before the Committee to explain why Internal Audit recommendations have not been implemented within the agreed timescale.

The Internal Audit Manager presented the update report on progress of the Internal Audit department.

Following a proposal previously made by the Committee and subsequent Cabinet approval, it was reported that additional resources had been sought to carry out work on the Plan which was aimed to be completed in April 2013.  The report indicated that since the Committee had last met, three projects had been deferred from the Plan and one added.  The Internal Audit Manager advised that a project on Pollution Control had also been deferred.

On Recommendation Tracking, the Internal Audit Manager said that the request previously made by the Committee for information on the reason for non-implementation of recommendations had been raised with the Corporate Management Team (CMT) with the support of the Chief Executive and it had been agreed that accountable senior officers would need to give their own feedback on the reason for any failure to do this.  It was hoped that this additional pressure would have a positive impact as the new system had been introduced and the additional information sought would be included in the next progress report at the June 2013 meeting.

The report detailed reasons for non-implementation of recommendations on Procurement, Consultants and Finance.  On the latter, the Head of Finance gave assurances on the value of audit work but said that she had been unable to meet the timescale required to respond due to budget work during the first quarter of 2013 which was a particularly challenging time, taking into account the introduction of new regulations on the Council Tax Support Scheme.  It was envisaged that three of the four reports would be dealt with by the end of March 2013 with the Capital Programme item expected to be resolved at the end of April.  She said that the department had undergone a major review and would be in a stable position going forward.

Mr. P. Williams acknowledged budget work pressures faced by the department but pointed out that some recommendations dated back to 2010.  In raising concerns about resources within the department, he asked for details on the number of recommendations made on audit reports and how many of these were not yet implemented.  The Internal Audit Manager agreed to provide a note on this to the Committee and pointed out that this type of slippage was an issue across other Council departments and not confined to Finance.  The figures in the report represented those recommendations due only at this point in time.

In addressing concerns raised by Members on resources, the Head of Finance said that the section had undergone a review to put in place a new structure which, for a number of organisational reasons, had taken longer than expected to achieve.  The new structure had been implemented from 1 January 2013 following the evaluation of jobs having been completed.  A number of vacant posts had been retained to give greater flexibility and mitigate any risk of redundancy, and it was intended that interim/temporary arrangements would  ...  view the full minutes text for item 63