Agenda item

Report of the Deputy Chief Executive (Place)

The Audit and Procurement Committee considered a report of the Deputy Chief Executive (Place) which provided an update on progress made in implementing internal audit recommendations since the last update in March 2018.

The Public Sector Internal Audit Standards requires that the “Chief Audit Executive (ie the Chief Internal Auditor) must establish a follow up process to monitor and ensure that management actions have been effectively implemented or that senior management have accepted the risk of not taking action.”

As reflected within its terms of reference, the Audit and Procurement Committee is required to receive reports on Internal Audit’s follow up process. The report provided an update as to progress in respect of the agreed management actions which have been followed up during the period March 2018 to February 2019.

Currently, there are three key considerations that will determine the follow up procedure adopted, namely:-

1)  Whether the area audited is of such significance that it is subject to an annual review

2)  The level of assurance provided in the audit report

3)  A self-assessment process for these reviews where neither of the points above apply, but a follow-up review is necessary

Overall it was believed that the procedure achieves the right balance between ensuring action is taken in response to risks identified by Internal Audit and allowing the Service to focus on identification of new risks.

The report and appendices set out the results from the latest follow up exercise, indicating that of the 236 actions followed up, 74% have been implemented based on both the formal and self-assessment follow up method. When analysed by follow up method, the results were that formal follow up method had a 61% implementation rate and self-assessment follow up method had a 82% implementation rate.

In relation to self-assessment, the implementation rate of 81% is not significantly different to rates over the last three years, however it remains higher in comparison to the formal follow up method. Consequently, in 2018-19, Internal Audit trialled an approach to validating self-assessment responses which focused on two audits, details of which were contained in an appendix. As a result of undertaking the pilot exercise to validate self-assessment responses, the following actions are planned for 2019-20:-

·  A programme of routine validation checks will be established to provide more robust assurance over the self-assessment approach. The results of this will be included in the next recommendation tracking report to the Audit and Procurement Committee.

·  The template form for self-assessments is to be revised to assist managers to reach appropriate conclusions on actions taken.

After the follow up has been completed, the results are collated within Internal Audit. If progress is not consistent with expectations, audit management will determine the next course of action, details of which were outlined in the report. Proposed actions for the audits where recommendations remain outstanding were highlighted within Appendices to the report.

RESOLVED that the Audit and Procurement Committee notes the progress made in implementing audit recommendations and confirms its satisfaction with this and the proposed action by the Acting Chief Internal Auditor for Internal Auditor for audits where actions remain outstanding.