To receive and consider the report of the Head of Audit and Risk.

Dawn Highton, Head of Audit and Risk presented the report which sets out the programme of work to be undertaken by the Internal Audit Service for the period between October 22 to March 23.

The Internal Audit Plan will be completed largely by the in-house team with external support procured for specialist ICT reviews and additional capacity provided by some temporary resource. The council has also recently successfully appointed to the post of Audit Trainee and this post is included in the resource allocation.

Successful delivery of the two combined six-month Plans will mean that Internal Audit will have delivered, in total 316 audit days to Chorley Council and 105 days to Chorley Leisure Limited, resulting in 21 audit assurance ratings. This is considered to be sufficient coverage in order to be able to provide the Governance Committee with an annual opinion on the overall adequacy and effectiveness of the organisation’s governance, risk management and control processes as required by the Public Sector Internal Audit Standards.

Members noted the adjustments to the risk assessments following a review in August 2022 but recognised the internal audit plan was not affected by this due to the plans being developed on a six-monthly basis rather than annually.

Resolved - That the Committee approve the Internal Audit Plan.