Issue - meetings

Internal Audit Annual Opinion 2024/25

Purpose:

To present a summary of the work undertaken by Internal Audit during 2024/25 and to give an overall opinion on levels of assurance resulting from this work.

Due to the information contained in The Internal Audit Annual Opinion, it is deemed unnecessary to submit a separate quarterly monitoring report. Instead, we have produced a condensed version of the usual report which contains a summary of the work concluded since the last meeting of this Committee.

Recommendation:

That the Audit and Governance Committee resolves to:

1. Note the report and comment as necessary.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The purpose of the report was to present a summary of the work undertaken by Internal Audit during 2024/25, and to give an overall opinion on levels of assurance that resulted from this work.

Lucy Cater, Head of Internal Audit Assistant Director SWAP Internal Audit Services, introduced the report and highlighted the following points:

Annex A contained the Internal Audit Annual Opinion on the adequacy and effectiveness of internal control within the Council, a summary of the work completed in the year, and a summary of all the quarterly reports previously presented to the Committee.
The annual opinion was that a “reasonable” assurance level had been given for the controls in place in the areas where audit activity had taken place.
The Annual Opinion supported the Annual Governance Statement and subsequently the Annual Statement of Accounts.
Page 22 highlighted the significant corporate risks; all of these had been presented to the Committee at previous meetings.
Page 34 presented the reports completed since the last meeting of the Committee.
A summary of all open and agreed actions was also in the report.

Questions were invited from the Committee and the following points were raised in discussion:

Internal audit was not monitoring staff levels, with reference to the potential for sudden changes due to Local Government Reorganisation (LGR), as this was not part of the initial audit. However, LGR was included in the Risk Register and was therefore being monitored as part of that process.
The open agreed actions which were shown as priority 1 and in red in Annexe C related to Human Resource audits.
With regard the Climate Change action for 22/23 shown in the open agreed actions, it was confirmed that the Climate Change Strategy was due to be adopted by the Executive. However, there was a Climate Change Operational Audit in progress, and this would form part of the 2025/26 Opinion.
Members were advised that data protection training was being tested and then would be rolled out to Members and Officers.
Officers were asked to quantify S.106 monies received but not spent. It was agreed that the Officer would return a response on this to the Committee Member. Members then expressed a wish to be certain that the newly established Enhancement Project to monitor S.106 spending was in place.

Councillor Carl Rylett proposed noting the report. This proposal was seconded by Councillor Ruth Smith, was put to the vote and agreed by the Committee.

Resolved:

That the Audit and Governance Committee:

1. Noted the report.

Issue - meetings

Internal Audit Annual Opinion 2024/25

Meeting: 26/06/2025 - Audit and Governance Committee (Item 70)

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