Issue - meetings

Purpose:to summarise the outcomes of recent internal audit activity for the committee to consider.  The committee is asked to review the report and the main issues arising, and seek assurance that action has been or will be taken where necessary (report attached).

The committee considered the audit manager’s report on internal audit activity during the first quarter 2014/15.  This summarised the outcomes of recent audit activity.  Six audits had been completed during the quarter, together with six follow-up audits.  

The committee concentrated on the audit report on temporary housing accommodation, which had been given limited assurance by internal audit.  The committee questioned the service manager on the outstanding recommendations, noting that those scheduled for completion by the end of June 2014 had been completed.  However, one recommendation remained outstanding relating to the purchase of a rent accounting software module to add to the council’s existing system.  A quote for the cost of this was awaited.  The committee noted that temporary accommodation would be subject to a follow-up audit in the next six months. 

The committee also considered a summary of outstanding recommendations from all internal audit reports over the past four years.  A schedule setting these out was made available at the meeting and would become a regular part of the internal audit activity report.  If it became apparent that a particular service was not implementing these recommendations, the committee could call the head of service to attend the next meeting to explain why.  The committee welcomed this, noting that in recent months the number of outstanding recommendations had reduced significantly, and only two outstanding recommendations fell within internal audit’s high risk category.  The committee asked that relevant the head of service’s title should appear against outstanding recommendations in the schedule. 

RESOLVED: to

(a)               note the internal audit activity report for the first quarter 2014/15;

(b)               ask the audit manager to include the relevant head of service’s name against each outstanding recommendation in the schedule for future internal audit activity reports.