Agenda item

(To receive a report which provides an update on progress made against the Audit Plan 2014/15 and provides summaries of all audits completed within the period April to August 2014)

Consideration was given to a report which provided an update on progress made against the Audit Plan 2014/15 and provided summaries of all audits completed within the period April to August 2014.

It was reported that during this period, 11 County audits had been completed, 8 to final report and 3 to draft report stage, as well as 9 schools audits.  Overall, 25% of the plan had been completed.

Members were advised that there were two auditors working almost full-time advising/support the Agresso implementation project.  The input of Internal Audit was a significant part of the work over the year, and represented 10% of the audit plan.  Regular highlight reported would be provided to the Section 151 Officer and Project Board, and updates would also be brought to the Committee over the coming year.

It was also noted that there were eight audits in progress, as well as additional work being undertaken on the Birth to Five Service, the Libraries Judicial review and Information Governance.  Visits to each of the Academies for which the County Council carries out internal audit work had also been undertaken.

Members were informed that the assurance levels provided for 2014/15 had been amended in response to the introduction of other UK Public Sector Internal Audit Standards and were based on the Institute of Internal Auditors professional practice.  The new levels of assurance would be as follows:

·         Effective

·         Some improvement needed

·         Major improvement needed

·         Inadequate

Members were provided with the opportunity to ask questions to the officers present in relation information contained within the report as well as audits where assurance had been assessed as 'no' or 'limited', and some of the points raised during discussion included the following:

·         The Agresso implementation would be complicated as it was a self-build, which would give the authority the resource to maintain and monitor the system itself.  It was noted that the project had now reached the build phase.  The financial systems were broadly on target, however, payroll was behind target due to a lack of resources from Serco and Mouchel.  It was expected that this would be back on target by the end of October.  It was also expected that the build phase would be complete by the end of October 2014, the system would then enter the testing phase, and three parallel runs with the payroll system would be carried out.  Members were advised that there were contingency plans in place in the event of problems, but the liability would be with Serco to resolve them;

·         A package of financial services had been put together which schools would be able to buy back, and meetings with schools had taken place to explain what would happen;

·         The new Agresso system would be more user friendly than the SAP system;

Coroners – Limited Assurance/Major Improvement Needed

·         Major improvement had been asked for, and so some challenge was expected;

·         There were two part-time senior Coroners covering two areas/jurisdictions, and were line managed by the Chief Coroner or Lord Chief Justice.  They were not employees of the authority, and no Council Officer had line management responsibility for them;

·         Officers had started to tackle some of the major issues;

·         The audit had been commissioned by the Service, as officers were keen to get an external view on the historic working practices;

·         There had been a lot of changes which had allowed greater opportunities to provide greater accountability;

·         There had been some issues around budget accountability, and more robustness in challenging spending was required, as it had been increasing;

·         One of the challenges was around process and policy, as the two coroners could not be forced to work together as they were independent, however, discussions had been taking place around bringing them together and working together in one location, and involving business support with the processes.  The intention was to bring them together in one location, with one IT solution, to provide a hub service which could serve the whole county;

·         There had been a delay in completing some of the management actions as it had not been possible to meet with both coroners until 5 September 2014;

·         Officers had been working very hard with the Coroners to change the policies and processes which were in place, to ensure that their views were taken into account;

·         Members were assured that there was confidence that all recommendations would be completed, although some may take a little longer to implement;

·         Concerns were raised regarding budget control and monitoring as there had been considerable overspending.  Members were advised that this was one area where it was difficult to set a budget as it depended on the nature of an inquiry and how many expert witnesses were required.  However, officers would continue to challenge;

·         Members acknowledged the reasoning behind the idea of a hub, but there were concerns about job losses, and how the service would continue to serve the whole county.  Members were advised that having a single hub would not affect the service, as the Coroners were keen to hold local inquests and travelled to where the inquest was, and it was not expected that there would be job losses, in fact there was a possibility that more staff could be required;  

·         Central Government additional funding would generally not be made available for exceptional cases, unless it was a major incident, when the Ministry of Justice would support the costs of an inquiry;

·         It was noted that there had been an increase in the number of referrals for post mortems, and it was reported that this had come in with the new Coroner, who was very keen to improve the health services in the south of the County.  It was noted that it was a judicial decision to order a post mortem;

·         It was requested that the Committee receive a progress report, and it was suggested that a follow up audit could be carried out in 6 – 12 months.  The issues faced by the service were appreciated;

Risk Management – Limited Assurance/Major Improvement Needed

·         Some areas of good practice were found, for example in how strategic risks were managed;

·         Some improvement was required in relation to key decisions, as reports to the Executive did not always clearly articulate the risks associated with the recommendations/proposal, and actions and controls to manage to manage risks were rarely included.  Therefore decisions may be made without full knowledge and understanding of the risks involved and how they would be managed;

·         Key projects had their own risk register;

·         Strategic risks were all included on the Corporate Risk Register, and if a project had a project risk register, this would form part of the normal handover arrangements in the event of absence of key members of staff;

MIMS Insurance Management System – No Assurance/Inadequate

·         This was a small, but important system, however, the level of error found was higher than expected;

·         Following this audit, a manual intervention was implemented to ensure that reports were accurate and complete;

·         Clear individual targets had been set, and one of the key issues within the team had been a lack of guidance notes;

·         A clear action plan had been put in place and was being monitored and taken forward;

·         It was found that 52% of claims had errors.  It was found that many of the errors were in relation to category of claim, specifically potholes.  The claim itself was correct, but the way it had been categorised was not;

·         This may not have been picked up previously as there had been a recent change in staffing;

·         The Insurance Manager met with the supplier in order to get a better understanding of the capabilities of the system;

Other issues

·         All school audits were on track;

·         In relation to the Debtors audit, David Laws had provided a response after the report had been published, good progress was reported, and key recommendations were being acted upon.  The briefing paper would be circulated to members of the Committee;

·         In relation to the Domestic Abuse audit, a briefing paper would again be circulated setting out the current actions, it was noted that many were around participation at MARAC meetings.

RESOLVED

            That the outcomes of the Internal Audit Work be noted.