Agenda item

That the report be noted.

The Internal Audit Manager presented the update report on progress of the Internal Audit department.  It was reported that the advertisement of a part-time vacancy, due to a secondment, had not received approval under the vacancy management control procedures and would impact on the audit plan.  The Internal Audit Manager said that he and the Head of Finance were working on options and would submit a report to the Committee as soon as possible.  He gave a reminder that he was required to notify the Committee of any significant matters which could jeopardise delivery of the plan.  The Head of Finance gave assurance that potential risks were being explored for any adjustments to be made to the plan, however it was noted that certain types of audit could not be deferred.

The Chief Executive invited the Committee to recognise that the rigorous approach being taken to vacancy management applied to all areas of the Council and was due to the uncertainty over the budget gap from 2014/15 onwards.  He spoke of the importance of the Committee being able to satisfy itself on any changes made to the plan.

The Internal Audit Manager gave an overview of the key considerations advising that the current year’s plan was on target and noted that more than 200 days had been completed on the plan last year.  He explained that the backlog of work from the last financial year, due to the major investigation, had resulted in a large number of reports being finalised since the last meeting and provided further detail on the implementation of Lean recommendations and Corporate Grants.

The Chair expressed concerns that not all Council vehicles had tracking devices fitted and suggested that the Committee may wish to take a view on this.  The Chief Executive spoke of an ongoing fleet review, including trackers, and suggested that the Head of Streetscene could be invited to the Committee to report on this.  Councillor T. Newhouse welcomed this and asked that the report include information on the cost of installing trackers.

Councillor G.S. Banks congratulated the Internal Audit Manager and his team for their work and suggested that the topic of vehicle trackers may be more relevant to Overview & Scrutiny.  The Chief Executive said that this was an issue which overlapped Housing and Streetscene, and that it was relevant for the Audit Committee to consider in relation to fraud prevention.

On recommendation implementation, the previously agreed change was now in place to show comments of the relevant Director/Head of Service for their respective areas.  A database was currently being developed to generate automatic replies for this.

Mr. P. Williams thanked officers for their efforts in progressing reports.  In welcoming the improvements to the implementation of recommendations, he hoped that the inclusion of responses from Director/Head of Service demonstrated greater ownership and accountability and suggested that it might be useful to include the new date and a ‘yes/no’ column to indicate whether or not the risk was acceptable to Internal Audit.  Councillor Newhouse suggested that the original date also be included.

Ms. A. Hughes of Wales Audit Office (WAO) said that the inclusion of comments from senior officers was a positive improvement which would increase accountability as well as keeping the Committee informed of progress.

On Performance Indicators, the Committee’s attention was drawn to the number of days for departments to return draft reports and was asked to note the impact on the PI arising from the time of year when reports were issued, for example, year end priorities in the Finance section.

During discussion on investigations, Mr. Williams asked about the completion of an investigation relating to the empty homes scheme.  The Internal Audit Manager explained that this related to a matter outside the procurement process and also provided further detail on an ongoing investigation.

Councillor Newhouse referred to acronyms in the report and asked that the full name be given when first used in a report and then acronyms.  The Chief Executive confirmed this was what should happen.

RESOLVED:

That the report be noted.