Agenda item

To consider a report by the Chief Internal Auditor (copy attached).

The Chief Internal Auditor introduced the Internal Audit Charter, Strategy & Quality Assurance Improvement Programme 2024/25 (previously circulated).

Local Authorities subject to the Account and Audit (Wales) Regulations had to maintain an adequate and effective system of internal audit of its accounting records and of its system of internal controls.  In accordance with the Public Sector Internal Audit Standards (PSIAS), safeguards would continue for a period of time to maintain Internal Auditors’ independence and objectivity.

The Chief Internal Auditor would review the Charter each year and present it to the Governance and Audit Committee for final approval.

Nigel Rudd commented that in his opinion it was a waste of the Chief Internal Auditors time and GAC’s time to review on an annual basis a charter which hardly changes.  He asked if representations could be made in the future for the necessity of this.  If a Charter was to run for several years, a report containing the amendments made to it as and when required. 

Concern was raised there were the sufficient resources to carry out work required. 

Were expectations realistic and were they reflected in terms of what was in the Charter. 

The Chief Internal Auditor took on board the comments made regarding the Charter.  He had to adhere to global standards and PSIAS standards together with standards set by the Institute of Internal Auditors. 

Approximately two weeks’ work is carried out to produce the plan.  Meetings take place with the Heads of Service, CET, SLT and Cabinet.  How long each review would take place is stated and time was then allocated for the team and then annual leave, bank holidays are taken out of that time together with a proportion for sickness.  This year the figure was 1100 days for the whole team and then it is costed all the different reviews which were taking place in to the days.  Technically, if there were no special investigations 100% of the reviews would be carried out but there is a contingency and 50 days had been included for investigations.

This year there were 56 on 31 March and were at 65% coverage at the present time.  This year were aiming to complete 75% which was realistic but, cannot foresee what could occur in the next 8-9 months. 

Standards were changing and CIPFA had until January 2025 as to whether accept all the changes or a muted form of changes.

As a North Wales and Welsh Chief Internal Auditor Groups, we fed in to the new global standards.  They had been agreed and now await the UK CIPFA to decide on what the public sector standards would be. 

The Chair recommended that GAC receive the new standards as an information report in spring 2025.  The Chief Internal Auditor stated that November would be a good time to present GAC with the standards and then receive the standards adopted by CIPFA in 2025.

Page 222 – Finance and Audit – General Ledger and Bank Reconciliation.  The new financial system would be taken into account for this.  A review was also to take place of the new financial system (T1).  T1 implementation would be reviewed and various details of the T1 system was included within the general ledger, accounts payable, and sundry debtors.

Page 222 – Partnerships.  The report brought to GAC would provide a definitive list at the time the report was written on all partnership arrangements.  Not just looking at pure partnerships, looking at different agreements in place, alternative delivery models, arrangements which may be in place.  GAC would be provided with an array of agreements in place and the information would be shared across the council. 

It had been requested that the mapping out of the governance arrangements was a piece of work which needed to be kept up to date.  Any ongoing work which came from the Panel Performance Assessment should be able to utilise the information from the mapping of the governance arrangements.

It was confirmed that once complete, the mapping out of the governance arrangements would be taken on by another service which would be best suited to keep the information updated.

RESOLVED that the Governance and Audit Committee approve the Internal Audit Charter (Appendix 1), the Internal Audit Strategy 2023-24 (Appendix 2) and the QAIP (Appendix 3).