Agenda and minutes

To receive any apologies or substitutions for the meeting.

Apologies were received from Cllr Andy Philips, who was substituted by Cllr Peter Evans.

To confirm and sign the minutes of the meeting held on 24 July 2018

Resolved:

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 24 July 2018.

To receive any declarations of disclosable interests or dispensations granted by the Standards Committee.

There were no declarations of interest.

The Chairman welcomed Becky Hellard to the meeting, who was the Interim Director of Finance and Procurement.

It was noted that a report on risk and performance, which was scheduled for the meeting, was not currently available, although it was in its final stages of being signed off. The report would be circulated to all Members as soon as possible and the Chairman would make a decision on whether a special meeting would be required.

Work on partnership governance had begun and a report would come to the committee in April 2019.

An idea was floated to invite risk owners to committee meetings where they could talk through the operational side of managing audits and to seek assurance that managers were confident managing the audits.

The Council welcomes contributions from members of the public.

Statements

If you would like to make a statement at this meeting on any item on this agenda, please register to do so at least 10 minutes prior to the meeting. Up to 3 speakers are permitted to speak for up to 3 minutes each on any agenda item. Please contact the officer named on the front of the agenda for any further clarification.

Questions

To receive any questions from members of the public or members of the Council received in accordance with the constitution.

Those wishing to ask questions are required to give notice of any such questions in writing to the officer named on the front of this agenda no later than 5pm on (4 clear working days, e.g. Wednesday of week before a Wednesday meeting) in order to be guaranteed of a written response. In order to receive a verbal response questions must be submitted no later than 5pm on (2 clear working days, eg Friday of week before a Wednesday meeting). Please contact the officer named on the front of this agenda for further advice. Questions may be asked without notice if the Chairman decides that the matter is urgent.

Details of any questions received will be circulated to Committee members prior to the meeting and made available at the meeting and on the Council’s website.

There were no members of the public present.

A short session by our internal auditors SWAP to illustrate some positive practical outcomes from internal audit projects and how they were arrived at.

David Hill, SWAP, gave a presentation on why internal audits were important to the success of an organisation.

Key points of the presentation included:

·         Recent examples of where internal audit made improvements in organisations;

·         The importance of internal audit;

·         The three lines of defence;

·         The role and focus of audit committees;

·         The evolving nature of internal audits as drivers for change;

·         The annual planning process;

·         Risk assessment planning;

The Chairman made note that it was important to ensure that SWAP were focusing their resources in the right areas and was keen to see a clear linkage between the audit reviews and the risk register, seeking assurances in areas other than finance.

The Chairman thanked SWAP for their presentations.

To receive an update.

The external auditors report was included in the agenda. A question was asked on the working relationship between external and internal auditors. The committee were advised that usually external and internal auditors set their plans together at the start of the financial year, with a triannual review to assess the reliability of the audits carried out.  

To receive an update

The report to Committee updated on the progress of the Internal Audit in respect of delivering the 2018/19 Internal Audit and Counter-Fraud Plans, managing response to audit recommendations and the Council’s overall control environment.

SWAP highlighted that 57% of the audits were in progress or completed, this was slightly behind schedule, although further resources would be brought in to ensure the audits would be completed on time. There had been a vast improvement with management engagement, resulting in improvements with implementing overdue actions and recommendations. One audit had been given no assurance which related to a school, work was ongoing to implement the recommendations and finally there was an amendment to the internal audit plan which required approval..

The committee discussed the outstanding recommendations, it was noted that they related to one particular service area which was experiencing resource issues. Further discussion took place on whether there was a need to increase SWAP’s input in school governance following a number of concerns of school governance.

SWAP advised that currently school governor’s self-assessments and meeting minutes were reviewed and SWAP agreed to build into their reviews a mechanism of alert to flag up issues before they escalated and to assess any difference between primary/ secondary and religious/ non-religious schools.

Members also agreed to refer the issues to scrutiny.

Resolved:

To approve the amendments to the internal audit plan for 2018/19.

To notify Scrutiny of the concerns raised during the meeting.

To receive an update

The Chairman introduced the item, referring to the report included with the agenda and welcomed the Interim Director of Finance and Procurement to give a short presentation on theory of reserves.

Following a general discussion, it was noted that Wiltshire Councils reserves were acceptable and the committee were reassured that the consistency of the reserves was positive.

To note the Forward Work Programme

It was noted that the forward work plan would be updated and circulated to members.

To note that the next regular meeting of the Committee will be held on 6 February 2019.

The next meeting would take place on 6 February 2019.

Any other items of business, which the Chairman agrees to consider as a matter of urgency.

There were no urgent items.