This report sets out a summary of those high and medium risk Internal Audit recommendations which remain outstanding together with an updated management response.

The Committee considered a report setting out a summary of Internal Audit recommendations and updated management responses, which focused on those recommendations where there had been either a ‘limited’ or ‘no assurance’ opinion.  A summary of Internal Audit recommendations and updated management responses since the last Committee was attached to the report at Appendix 1.   

Prior to reporting to Committee, officers responsible for implementing the specific recommendations had been asked to update the audit tracker. Each recommendation had been marked with a percentage complete, which correlated to a red (up to 25%), amber (26%-75%), or green (76%+) rating.  However, any recommendations that were less than 50% complete but had exceeded their agreed completion date had also been markedred.  There were 55 recommendations currently on the tracker, of which three had been completed since the last meeting and would be removed prior to the next meeting. Fifteen recommendations had been added to the tracker since the last report and nine had been removed as complete.  The Committee was keen to make the tracker more streamlined and discussed whether the completed ‘green’ recommendations should be removed from the tracker or be presented in a different format.

The Director of Finance reported that implementation of the new Finance System had reached the user acceptance testing phase and was on course to ‘go live’ in the autumn.  There would be a further progress update to the next meeting on 27 September 2023.

Resolved:   

(1)           That the high and medium risk Internal Audit recommendations and the responses to those risks be noted as set out in Appendix 1 to the report;

(2)           That officers be asked to review the information provided in the report and audit recommendation tracker and make a proposal on how attention could be concentrated on the issues in most need of the Committee’s consideration.