Agenda item

The Committee received the Internal Audit Progress Report from the Head of Worcestershire Internal Audit Shared Service. The report before the Committee summarised progress made against the delivery of the Internal Audit Plan 2022/23 up to 31^st January 2023. Members were advised that Appendix 2 to the report provided a complete overview of the Plan.

It was noted that since the last Committee meeting, two internal audit reports on Debtors and Main Ledger had been finalised. The recommendations arising from these two reports had been acknowledged by Council’s management. Another review into Workshop Licensing Compliance had now been cleared and it would be reported at the next Committee meeting.

It was reported that National Fraud Initiative (NFI) data set uploads were completed on time and results of these data matches were now being received by the various Service areas.

A complete overview of the follow-up review programme undertaken during 2022-23 was provided at Appendix 4, which enabled Members to take a holistic view of the internal audit programme.

It was reported that meetings on the finance system between the Head of Worcestershire Internal Audit Shared Service and the Council’s Head of Finance had continued in order to monitor progress on rectifying issues.

Two final internal audit reports relating to Core Financials were included in the agenda pack documents, which related to General Ledger 2022-23 and Accounts Receivable. It was highlighted that Accounts Receivable received limited assurance and assurance could not be provided with regards to General Ledger at the current time due to a backlog in submissions of the Statements of Accounts and a backlog with resolving reconciliations and finance system data transfers. The Interim Director of Finance commented that he agreed with the internal audit’s assessment and noted that assurance could not increase until the backlog was remedied.

Following the presentation, Members queried what the bus operator grant related to and it was explained that this represented audit returns for a County Council grant that was spent on fuel for the Council fleet, including dial-a-ride and other Services using vehicles. The purpose of the audit was for assurance to be gained that funds were being spent to make vehicles and operations fuel efficient and that fuel consumption figures were reported accurately.

Some Members asked, in relation to a follow-up internal audit report on GDPR-Document Retention, about the printing from home policy and Docmail. In particular they questioned whether the ICT policy with regards to home printing had now changed and those who had access and used home printing on work devices were now unable to print at home. Officers undertook to contact the ICT Manager and the Head of Transformation and Organisational Development and report back to Members on this matter.

In response to a question relating to the need for further follow-up audit of GDPR-Document Retention, it was reported that one recommendation from that audit was fully implemented and a further two were partially implemented. Progress on implementation of these recommendations would be reviewed in July. It was further noted that reviews of Core Financials would be finalised before the next Committee meeting.

Officers concluded by stating that it was anticipated that the 2023-24 Internal Audit Plan would be presented to the Committee in June/July 2023.

RESOLVED that

the report be noted.