Issue - meetings

Shared Internal Audit Service (SIAS) - Progress Report

Meeting: 16/03/2021 - Audit and Governance Committee (Item 421)

421 Shared Internal Audit Service (SIAS) - Progress Report pdf icon PDF 448 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Shared Internal Audit Service (SIAS) Officer introduced the report and highlighted the main points to Members.

 

The Chairman asked when the audit of Millstream would take place. He also noted that the number of high priority recommendations had fallen to two and asked whether it was likely that these would be dealt with prior to the next meeting of the Committee.

 

The SIAS Officer said that it was likely that the Millstream audit would take place in quarter two of the next financial year. There was still a significant amount of work to be done on the remaining high priority recommendations so it was unlikely this would be completed before the next meeting of the Committee.

 

The Chairman asked about the audit days allotted to ‘strategic support’, membership of the SIAS board, joint reviews and whether the newsletters produced by SIAS could be circulated to Members.

 

The SIAS Officer explained that strategic support was time spent providing support to the Head of Strategic Finance and Property and producing the audit plan, for example. Joint reviews occurred when local authorities came together to commission a review into a particular issue. One recent example of this was the Council’s partnership with North Herts in auditing waste contracts. Any reports which stemmed from these reviews would be presented to the Committee, although their regularity was dictated by the appetite for the reviews. The SIAS newsletter could be shared with Members going forward.

 

It was moved by Councillor Stowe and seconded by Councillor Ward-Booth that the recommendations, as detailed, be approved. After being put to the meeting and a vote taken, the motion was declared CARRIED.

 

RESOLVED – that (A) the Internal Audit Progress Report be noted;

 

(B) changes to the Internal Audit Plan as at 26 February 2021 be approved; and

 

(C) the Status of Critical and High Priority Recommendations be noted.