Agenda item

Report by the Director of Finance and Support Services, and the Head of Southern Internal Audit Partnership.

The Committee will also receive verbal updates on Directorate progress on Internal Audit actions.

The Committee is asked to note the Internal Audit Progress Report (June 2022).

4.1        The Committee considered a report by the Director of Finance and Support Services, and the Head of Southern Internal Audit Partnership (copy appended to the signed minutes).

4.2        The item began with attendance from Mrs Steele, Assistant Director - Safeguarding Quality and Assurance, and Mrs Godley, Service Manager – Business Support, Children, Young People and Learning to discuss P-Card areas within the Internal Audit report.

4.3        Mrs Steele began by passing on apologies from the Assistant Director – Early Help and Children's Social Care who had the responsibility of the P-Cards, but was unable to attend the Committee meeting.

4.4        Mrs Steele explained that Internal Audit had identified 17 management actions for the service concerning the management of P-Cards and that a rapid response team had been created to respond.  A full review had been undertaken across the service to highlight all P-Card holders, address the actions and ensure that a robust procedure was put in place going forwards.  The work was planned to be completed within three to six months with regular reviews in place.

4.5        The Committee made comments including those that follow.

•      Queried the level of P-Cards in use.  - It was confirmed there was a high number of P-Cards in use.  Mrs Godley explained a new process will be put into place for P-Card authorisation.  This would reduce the number of P-Cards in use.

•      Asked how leavers with P-Cards were identified and handled.  - Mrs Godley confirmed the current process required line managers to decommission P-cards.  Line managers had been made aware of their responsibilities for procedures when staff left the service.  It was confirmed there were no obsolete P-Cards in circulation. 

•      Queried if there were automatic controls for spending that would monitor and detect inappropriate purchases.  – Ms Eberhart confirmed it was managers’ responsibilities to confirm the spending was appropriate to need and in compliance with policies.  All expenditure must be approved by managers.  As an additional control measure, Mr Pitman, Head of Southern Internal Audit Partnership, explained that Internal Audit was undertaking a review of all P-Card spend using data analytics to highlight ‘red flags’ or transactions that may require closer investigation.  The Committee welcomed the idea of more automation to the process.  Mrs Godley explained that the system used was not a County Council system and so the external elements required manual oversight.

•      Asked if the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) would work with the Council on this issue.  – Ms Eberhart proposed that this could be a costly exercise, but work could be done to monitor levels.  The emphasis should be on the managers to authorise appropriate spend.

•      Queried if it was possible for spend to happen after someone left with a P-Card.  - Mrs Chuter, Financial Reporting Manager, confirmed there were processes in place that would pick this up.  It was highlighted that unusual spend activity was automatically picked up, such as spend on petrol.

4.6        The Committee then received attendance from Mr Andrews, Deputy Chief Fire Officer, to update on areas in the Internal Audit report for the Fire Service.

4.7        Mr Andrews began his update by thanking the Internal Audit team for their support with appropriately resolving the identified issues.

4.8        The first update related to Safe and Well visits for which the 2018 inspection had identified as requiring improvement.  All actions had been picked up and addressed; and the third quarter audit would verify the progress.  Core measures were now green for performance and output.

4.9        The next update referred to safeguarding issues.  Mr Andrews confirmed that the issue relating to staff not being identified as undertaking necessary training was found to be an error in the recording of the training, and confirmed that the staff had undertaken the training.  Action plans had also been introduced for appropriate recording of data to ensure record keeping procedures were appropriate.

4.10     The next update concerned Working Time Regulations.  Mr Andrews explained that the 2018 inspection had picked up issues with how working time was being recorded.  The action plan was being worked on to resolve the issues, but it was noted that this was a long term issue to resolve.  Working times was a complex area to monitor, with elements such as part time working and retained firefighters. 

4.11     The Committee made comments including those that follow.

•      Queried the data controls that had been introduced.  – Mr Andrews explained that there had been the introduction of a Quality Assurance Officer and also the introduction of the Farynor recording system which was an improvement on the old system which had less resilience against errors with data entry.

•      Sought clarity on the timescales for the Working Time Regulation actions.  – Mr Andrews reported that there was an eighteen month plan on this and that benchmarking would be undertaken with other fire authorities.  The Committee stressed the importance of reporting regulatory compliance.

•      Commented that the issues discussed for the agenda item so far raised a wider issue of County Council data management.  – Mr Andrews explained that within the fire service this was a complex issue where fire systems had to work with County Council systems for data transfer.

4.12     The Chairman thanked the attending officers for their updates on the audit actions.

4.13     Mr Pitman introduced the report and highlighted had completion rates had increased since the report publication and had moved from 91% to 97%.  Overdue actions had reduced by ten and two high priority actions for Approved Mental Health Professionals (AMHPs) had improved since the report publication.

4.14     The Committee made comments including those that follow.

•      Requested an update on Adult Services actions.  – Mr Pitman reported that a draft report was with the Director and would come to the next Committee meeting.  Assurance mapping was now in progress.  The Committee requested any further information when it was available.

•      Noted that not all County Councillors had completed the mandatory IT security and data protection training and proposed that the Chairman write to group leaders to encourage completion.  – Mr Gauntlett, Senior Advisor in Democratic Services, confirmed that systems had been improved to monitor and promote training; and reported that the Head of Democratic Services had flagged required training with group leaders.  The Chairman agreed to write to group leaders where they were responsible for County Councillors that required training.

•      Sought clarity on the revised due date of January 2022 for Special Educational Needs management actions.  – Mr Pitman explained that the team would have received a reminder to update this, but resolved to chase the team.  The Committee asked if it was possible for future reports to highlight similar slippage.  Mr Pitman resolved to add this to future reports.

•      Noted the Limited opinion for IR35 and queried why there was no report on this.  – Mr Pitman explained that this had come to the previous Committee meeting, and that the report reflected the initial opinions.

4.15     Resolved – That the Committee notes the Internal Audit Progress Report (June 2022).