This report provides an update on key findings emanating from Internal Audit reports issued since the last quarterly progress report.

Paul Harrington, Chief Auditor, submitted a reportproviding an update on key findings emanating from Internal Audit reports issued since the last quarterly progress report in January 2021.

The report set out a summary of the audit reports in respect of: Payroll; Penalty Charge Notices; Additional Payments; Housing Revenue Account (HRA) - Governance; Accounts Receivable; and Accounts Payable.  As the Chief Auditor had given ‘limited assurance’ to the way the Council dealt with ‘HRA - Governance; and Accounts Receivable’, the full internal audit reports for those audits were appended to the report.  The Chief Auditor also could only give limited assurance in relation to Penalty Charge Notices and the report contained a short summary statement and referred the Committee to the full report, which would be considered in Part 2 of the meeting (see also Minute 41 below).

In relation to HRA - Governance, the report stated that there was a lack of permanent HRA expertise to ensure that service teams were fully supported in their roles in relation to the HRA.  The Chief Auditor accepted that recruitment to this area had been difficult, and the Finance Service had committed to developing inhouse expertise in this area.  The audit also identified that it was vital that there was a common understanding of policies, procedures and processes for the HRA 30-year model to support budget setting and monitoring within finance and service teams so that there was consistency both in-year and from year to year.

In relation to Accounts Receivable, the audit recognised there had been some progress in implementing audit recommendations, but much of the work was still in progress at the time of the audit.  As a result, process weaknesses remained, such as incomplete information being supplied to the Accounts Receivable Team from services to inform the debt recovery process and large quantities of invoices were still being raised for small values. The level of detail on invoices was sometimes inadequate, which in turn generated queries by the debtor, which then resulted in the Accounts Receivable staff having to act as intermediaries.  These were important issues that if addressed, could improve collection performance.

The report also listed the audits that were currently in progress and gave a summary of investigations work between April 2020 and March 2021.

Resolved:     That the audit findings in relation to the Housing Revenue Account - Governance; and Accounts Receivable be noted, and the recommendations set out in the full audit reports be endorsed.