Agenda item

To provide a summary of the work completed by Risk Services in quarter one of the 2015/2016 financial year.

Ms Greenhalgh, Chief Internal Auditor, presented the Committee with an overview of the Risk Services Report for the first quarter of 2015-2016. 

Ms Greenhalgh reported on the key internal audits that had been scoped in the first quarter and for which preparatory work had commenced. Members were also provided with details of service developments with regards to Corporate Fraud, the related recruitment exercise undertaken by the service in order to appoint an Insurance Fraud Officer and the procurement of a system to facilitate the investigation of insurance fraud.

Ms Greenhalgh reported on the Key Performance Indicators for the service.  She advised that, although still not quite on target, 80% of business continuity plans were up to date as of the date of the meeting and that 100% of risk registers had been revised and were up to date. Members’ attention was also drawn to the Corporate Fraud Team statistics.

Members questioned the reasons for only 53% of the Places directorate business continuity plans being completed. Ms Greenhalgh advised that this was due to resource issues within the directorate but that she had been working with the directorate’s Risk Champion and, as of the day of the meeting, the completion rate had risen to 70%. The Committee also raised questions regarding a number of performance indicators of which the 2015/2016 actual measure appeared to be a long way short of the target. Ms Greenhalgh explained that those targets were annual targets and it was expected that the actual measure would increase throughout the year.

The Committee was advised that there had been two inadequate assurance statements issued within the quarter. Those inadequate assurance statements related to Income and Debt Management, for which it was noted there was a wide array of procedures in place across the Council, with varying levels of performance. It was considered that there were inadequate controls in place and major lapses in compliance with the controls on some services. The other inadequate assurance statement related to Housing Options, which was considered to have inadequate controls in place in relation to having an appropriate system in place for financial management. However, Ms Greenhalgh advised that planned improvements, which included the introduction of new software packages for service and financial management, should help enable more robust controls in future. An update on the implementation of improvements resulting from the internal audits would be presented to Members at a future Committee meeting.

Members raised questions with regards to the performance of the Estate Management service in relation to the Internal Audit review of Income and Debt Management. Members were advised that Estate Management was not the only service area to not have been performing adequately in its income and debt management, but that there had been issues within that service relating to the timeliness of raising income. Mr Thompson, Director of Resources, advised that he chaired an Income and Debt Strategy Group, which had been responsible for commissioning the internal audit review and had the objective of ensuring consistency of income and debt management across the Council. The Group had actioned the areas where improvements were required, which had included some personnel changes and a restructure of Property Services. He noted that due to the size of the organisation and the level of income it generated, it would be inevitable that some debts would occasionally need to be written off. However, it was considered that the Council could improve its performance in this area.

The Committee challenged the adequate assurance statement of the Children’s Services Social Care improvement Plan, in light of Internal Audit’s concerns that the Improvement Plan was not reflected in the Service Risk Register and its assertion that action should be taken to ensure that outstanding milestones were completed. Members were advised that this was due to the outstanding milestones being considered lower risk and Mr Jack, Chief Executive, explained the background to the Improvement Plan to Members. It was noted that the Improvement Board had disbanded following the Department for Education’s Notice to Improve Order, in respect of the Council’s Safeguarding Service, being lifted. However, there remained a number of outstanding milestones to be transferred into the updated plans of the appropriate body within the Council, in order to ensure they were completed.

The Committee agreed to note the report and requested that progress against the Priority One recommendations that arose from the Income and Debt Management and Housing Options Internal Audit reports be presented to Members at future Committee meetings.

Background papers:  None