Agenda item

The Internal Audit Annual Report for 2024-25 was presented on behalf of the Head of Worcestershire Internal Audit Shared Service. It was noted that the Head of Internal Audit’s overall audit opinion on the Council’s system of internal control environment was Reasonable Assurance which was the second highest grade. There were 13 graded internal audit assignments in 2024-25 of which three received substantial assurance, seven reasonable assurance, three limited assurance. There were no assignments that were graded as no assurance.

Of the three assignments that received limited assurance, the Accounts Payable received this level of assurance due to the internal auditors being unable to complete full review of this area as the finance team focused their efforts in 2024-25 on the work of completing the statements of accounts in line with statutory backstop dates.

Improvements in Procurement and Contract Management was found but limited assurance provided due to the Council not yet being fully compliant with the new procurement regulations. Procurement team was supporting services to achieve full compliance with the rules and a follow up review would be performed by Internal Audit in 2025-26 which would include monitoring compliance with the new regulations. In response to a Member question, it was reported that tender process were subject to stringent monitoring process and when assessing tenders the Council looked at a mix of both quality and price.

The review of Corporate Credit / Procurement Cards found limited assurance owing to the current issues with authorisation controls and accountability for the overall process. To address this, the senior management team had vested authority and provided support to the Procurement Manager to monitor service-level compliance and challenge those officers who were not following the procurement procedure correctly.

It was noted that a review of council tax arrears in respect of single person discounts had not been undertaken for eight years and a review would be undertaken in 2025-26. It was highlighted that regular checks were undertaken by officers but a review was now due and it needed to be assessed whether it was economic for the Council to undertake a full-scale approach to chasing arrears in this area. The officers commented that it might be possible to approach the County Council to undertake and coordinate work in chasing council tax arrears as the County Council received circa 75 per cent of the overall council tax income.

A Member raised a concern about the Statutory Inspections internal audit review finding missing details and inconsistent approach in respect of fire safety controls and commented that this was a significant risk for the Council. The Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Finance Officer explained that internal audit reviews contained some mandatory actions for the Council to carry out and the relevant service managers had been tasked with rectifying the issues found in this review. Any areas where officers did not carry out actions by the deadline set could be raised at the Committee meetings. It was explained that the Committee could also ask the relevant officers to attend meetings if any actions had not been carried out by agreed internal audit dates.

The Portfolio Holder for Finance addressed the Committee and noted in terms of Council’s oversight that the Council Tax collection rate was at about 98 per cent which was among the best collection rates in the country. The Council was proactive in terms of governance, and the Portfolio Holder pointed out that in two of the three cases of limited assurance, this rating had been received because of the finance team being active in pointing out problems to the Internal Auditors.

RESOLVED that

the Internal Audit Annual Report and Audit Opinion 2024-25 be noted.