Agenda item

The Committee considered a report which presented the 2021/22 Business Assurance Strategy update, which included progress against the Internal Audit Plan. The 2021/22 Internal Audit Plan had been reviewed to identify the key audit activities to be delivered considering the priorities within the Directorates and working around the service reviews that were underway.

The Business Assurance Strategy; including the Internal Audit Plan was agreed by the Audit Board and by the Audit and Governance Committee in June 2021. The Internal Audit Plan was produced with reference to the Strategic and Directorate Risk Registers; and informed through discussion with the Senor Leadership Teams for each Directorate, Heads of Finance, Section 151 Officer and the Deputy Chief Executive. The Internal Audit Plan continued to be dynamic in nature with activity reviewed and realigned on a regular basis to take account of new, emerging and changing risks and priorities. Progress was regularly reviewed by the Audit Board.

Quarterly Business Assurance updates were presented to each Directorate Leadership Team providing updates on the planned audit and assurance activity, which were reviewed for appropriateness each time. Views of the directorates were also sought on the work of the Business Assurance Team to enable continuous improvement and ensure that the needs and expectations of the organisation were met.

The detailed Business Assurance update was appended to the report.

During discussion, points raised included:

• Members recognised the high volume of work undertaken by the Business Assurance team.
• The team was currently going through its service review which reviewed the staffing structure. It was hoped that this would be agreed circa August 2022 and recruitment activity could then be planned as required. There had been changes within the team since the time of the last meeting with three leavers, backfilling options were being explored, although as noted in earlier items there was a wider shortage of qualified staff. The team was exploring how to make best use of frameworks such as the London APEX audit framework.
• The team remained busy reviewing grant certification work, this work looked to check that expenditure was in line with the relevant conditions of the respective grant. A number of these required returns to be sent to Central Government. A Grant Assurance Framework was currently being produced.
• Assurance work around the Council’s Ukraine response was underway. The team was reviewing payment processes, ensuring controls were in place and regular catch ups with key groups were being held. The team was supporting the risk management aspect of this work and ensuring risk registers were in place.
• Work had been undertaken on the South East Aylesbury Link Road (SEALR) project, findings raised had identified further areas to review within the appropriate service area to ensure adequate frameworks were in place to give assurances around other major projects underway. 
• Work also continued on the review of key financial systems, with outcomes of the audit work then being fed in to the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system specification work.
• In relation to the national Council Tax rebate for households in tax bands A-D, Members heard that work had been undertaken reviewing processes prior to them being embedded and that post payment assurance work would also be undertaken in liaison with the Revenues and Benefits team.
• The Committee heard that the Community Boards audit would commence at the start of quarter 2 and should be reported back to the September meeting of the Committee. Members identified that both the effectiveness of the governance of the boards and the auditing of money dispensed to various projects required review and emphasised that both areas should be audited. If one of these areas was not audited the Committee requested the reasons be reported back to Members.
• A Member raised concern that the Senior Leadership Team was able to defer activity and gave examples of where assurance activity would add significant value to areas that were making improvements. Assurance activity would also provide valuable insight where there were resourcing issues and it was thought that this was not an adequate reason to defer activity. The Committee heard that where deferrals were being asked for, the team was working on having a stringent process to ensure the reasons were entirely valid. 
• There was a further concern raised that service reviews should not prevent assurance activity taking place and could be an important element of assessing resourcing requirements moving forward. The Committee was advised that service reviews were time consuming for officers, and the team had given input in to some of the service reviews that had already been completed.

RESOLVED –

That the report be noted.