Issue - meetings

To receive and consider the report of the Service Lead for Audit and Risk.

Dawn Highton, Service Lead for Audit and Risk presented the report which relates to the results of the self-assessment carried out by Internal Audit against the requirement of the Public Sector Internal Audit Standards (PSIAS) and Local Government Application Note (LGAN) as a means of assessing the effectiveness of Internal Audit.

The self-assessment demonstrates that the Service conforms with the Standards. There are 134 aspects of conformance, of which full conformance has been achieved for 128. There are 5 areas which are not applicable to the Internal Audit Service with only 1 partial conformance related to fraud which is included in the draft Annual Governance Statement.

Members were reassured that the Council was not experiencing fraud, but the risk of fraud was considered in each audit review. CIPFA guidance contains a checklist which has also been completed to further improve fraud arrangements. The committee noted the Quality Assurance and Improvement programme.

It was noted that under question 1112 Chief Audit Executive Roles Beyond Internal Auditing (page 117), ‘non-conforming’ should also be crossed out to indicate conformance.

Resolved - That the report be noted.