Agenda item

To receive the following Internal Audit updates from SWAP:

·       Internal Audit Annual Opinion Report 2022/23

·       Approach to Internal Audit Planning 2023/24

Sally White (SWAP) presented the Internal Audit updates.

Regarding the Internal Audit Annual Opinion for 2022/23, an opinion of Reasonable Assurance was given. Pensions Payroll Reconciliation work had been outsourced to speed up progress. Quarterly meetings were being held regarding Pensions Key Controls. An audit tracker had been appended to the report. Monthly meetings were scheduled with officers to discuss progress against audit actions and consider any additional work which may be required. SWAP would report back to the Committee until they felt that risks had been mitigated.

The SWAP representative highlighted page 38 of the agenda which showed a summary of audit work by type. Also highlighted was page 41, new processes regarding follow up were continuing and there had been no instances in 2022/23 where a control weakness was brought to the attention of senior management and a decision was made by them to accept the risk and not implement remedial action. Pages 42 – 46 of the agenda detailed work undertaken during the pervious year.

In response to a question from Members on the coverage of risks (page 37 of the agenda), the SWAP representative explained that work was planned in some of the areas. SWAP would be taking a more risk based approach going forward and that work would be scheduled across any gaps.

The SWAP representative then gave details regarding the approach to Internal Audit planning for 2023/24. SWAP were moving towards a continuous rolling plan approach, so would not present an annual plan. This approach would be more dynamic and enable planning in response to progress.

Members of the Committee had been invited to log on to an audit board portal, which provided a live view of the audit plan and proposed future work. This would be updated regularly allowing Members to self-serve and access the most up to date information.

In response to a question on whether Internal Audit work was prioritised by a proportion of spend, for example Adult Social Care which took a large amount of the council’s budget, it was stated that work was risk assessed based on the council’s strategic risk register, service risk registers and performance data. They did look at areas where there was large spend.

The risks surrounding Adult Social Care and whether the council’s budget would cover those risks were discussed at length. It was explained that the council’s budget was set using the Bank of England CPI assessment which stated that inflation would drop to 2% by the end of the calendar year. This was currently looking unlikely. There was a section within the budget papers that went to Full Council on 21 February covering these matters. Within the budget monitoring cycle, the Financial Planning Task Group looked at the budget and reserves to ensure councillor oversight. There was risk but it was managed.  SWAP stated the 2 audits had been undertaken in 2021 around Adult Social Care (the ‘Good Lives Alliance’ and ‘Help to Live at Home’) and one was planned called ‘Living my life’ which was around the procurement process undertaken.

In response to questions about schools audits it was explained that SWAP were looking at more efficient ways to conduct school audits, for example looking at specific themes across a number of schools, rather than conducting a whole school audit. It was clarified that the council were only responsible for local authority maintained schools and not academies. The local authority still had relationships with academies and other non-maintained schools, and they attended Schools Forum, but Wiltshire Council were not responsible for them. The council was however responsible for the education of children and school place provision. The governments white paper on academisation was discussed and the council would react to that when required and appropriate. The drop in birth rate was also discussed which could lead to an over provision of school places, modelling was being undertaken by the Education Service to support decisions.

At the conclusion of the discussions, it was,

Resolved:

·       To note the Internal Audit Annual Opinion Report 2022/23

·       To note the Approach to Internal Audit Planning 2023/24