This report presents the annual assurance report of the Chief Auditor required by the Accounts and Audit Regulations and the Public Sector Internal Audit Standards.

Paul Harrington, Chief Auditor, submitted a report setting out at Appendix 1 the Internal Audit Annual Assurance Report of the Chief Auditor, as required by the Accounts and Audit regulations and the Public Sector Internal Audit Standards.  The report gave the Chief Auditor’s opinion on the overall adequacy and effectiveness of the organisation’s governance arrangements, risk management and internal control environment, drawing attention to any issues particularly relevant to the preparation of the Annual Governance Statement.  It also set out key themes arising from the work of the Audit Team during the 2018/2019 financial year, and compared the audit work undertaken with that planned, summarising the performance of the Internal Audit function against its performance measures and targets.

The report explained that, on the basis of work completed during the course of the year, the Chief Auditor had concluded that whilst no assurance could ever be absolute, reasonable assurance could now be placed on the adequacy and effectiveness of the Council’s internal control framework within those areas audited in 2018/19.  The Assurance Report noted in section 4, that some key areas for improvement had been identified within some of the Council’s systems.  In these cases, it had only been possible to give limited assurance.  The Chief Auditor emphasised that, whilst improvements had been made and the direction of travel was positive, there was still considerable work to be done.

The Committee noted the key performance indicators (KPIs) for internal audit, which were set out at paragraph 7.2.2 of the Assurance Report and included a target for management responses to audit reports to be received within three weeks.  The KPIs expected this to be met on 90% of occasions but in 2018/19 it had only been achieved 30% of the time.  It was proposed that a list should be kept of the services that missed the three week target for a response to ensure that the information was available for the Committee to review if there was no improvement in performance.

Resolved:   

(1)           That the assurance opinion given by the Chief Auditor be noted;

(2)           That a record be kept by the Chief Auditor of the services that had not met the Key Performance Indicator to respond within three weeks of issue of a draft audit report.