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

Further to Minute 24 of the meeting held on 24 January 2019, Jackie Yates, Executive Director of Resources, submitted a report setting out, at Appendix 1, the Implementation of Audit Recommendations tracker report.

The report explained that each recommendation was marked with a percentage complete which correlated to a red/amber/green rating (up to 25% complete: red, between 26% and 75%: amber, over 75% complete: green).  Any recommendations that were less than 50% complete but had exceeded their agreed completion date were also marked red.  In the tracker report at Appendix 1 there were 90 high and medium risk recommendations from Internal Audit, of which 48 (53%) were currently green, 26 (29%) were amber and 16 (18%) were red.  Twenty seven recommendations had now been completed and would be removed from the next report.  The ‘red’ rated risks had fallen from 19 to 16 since the last report to the meeting on 24 January 2019, but had increased in percentage terms as a result of the number of risks decreasing overall from 116 to 90. 

The Committee noted that audit reviews specific to children and education, which included schools, were being reported directly to the children’s company, Brighter Future for Children (BFfC).  The Company had ‘bought back’ into the Council’s internal audit service and Paul Harrington was reporting regularly to BFfC’s audit committee.  The Committee requested an update on the children and education related ‘risks’ that had been removed from the tracker presented to this meeting to provide reassurance that they were now being monitored through the Company’s procedures.

In response to a question, Matt Davis, Assistant Director of Finance provided an update on Audit Recommendation 15, ‘Debtors’. Written updates on progress with Audit Recommendations 15, ‘Debtors’, 28 ‘Governance and Data Protection’ and 37 ‘Mosaic’ would be provided to Councillor Warman, as requested.

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 a report from the Council’s Contract Manager be provided to the next meeting setting out the audit arrangements for Brighter Futures for Children to provide assurance that children and education service related risks that had previously been reported to this Committee were being appropriately monitored and acted on by the Company.