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

Charlie Stewart, interim Executive Director of Resources, presented a report setting out progress with the Implementation of Audit Recommendations. A copy of the Implementation of Audit Recommendations Tracker for January 2023 was attached to the report at Appendix 1.

The report explained that each recommendation set out in Appendix 1 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.

The tracker now had 99 high and medium risk recommendations from Internal Audit, of which 28 (28.3%) were currently green but not complete, 40 (40.4%) were amber and 5 (5.1%) were red.  Twenty-six recommendations had now been completed and would be removed from the next report and 13 recommendations had been added to the tracker since the last report.

The Committee considered a recommendation from the Chief Auditor to focus the audit recommendations tracker on those audit findings with limited or no assurance in future reports.

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 future Audit Recommendations Tracker reports be focussed on those recommendations where the Auditors’ findings had given limited or no assurance, subject to the full list of audit recommendations continuing to be reviewed by the relevant senior officers and the narrative section on the tracker being kept up to date by the officer responsible for implementing the recommendations.