Agenda item

Internal Audit Progress Report

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

The Committee is asked to note the Internal Audit Progress Report.

Minutes:

41.1   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).

41.2   Firstly the Committee welcomed Paul Wagstaff, Director of Education and Skills, to give an update on the identified weakness in relation to internal controls and compliance around SEND.

41.3   Mr Wagstaff explained that the issue was the inability for the IT system, Mosaic, to provide reports.  He stated that there are currently 6000 children with EHPs all with different dates for review and Mosaic does not currently pick those dates up.  In the short term a manual system had been created to ensure data around annual reviews was manually logged and Mr Wagstaff was confident this would ensure the data was accurate.  In the longer term, Mr Wagstaff confirmed there was a programme in place to make better use of technology and to generate the level of reporting required.

41.4   The Committee made comments including those that follow. It:

    Asked if Mosaic would be replaced. Ms Eberhart confirmed there were no plans to replace Mosaic, but it would be moving to a cloud-based system and during that upgrade a lot of issues would be corrected.

    Asked if the commissioning strategy for SEND was still postponed. Mr Wagstaff confirmed it was delayed but due this coming year.

   The Committee thanked Mr Wagstaff for the updates.

 

41.5   Mr Pitman, Head of Southern Internal Audit Partnership, introduced the report stating it was the standard progress report through to February 2021. 

41.6   Mr Pitman draw the Committee’s attention to page 56, section 4 that set out an overview of live reports and an analysis of overdue actions.  This showed a downward trend in respect of overdue actions.

41.7   Mr Pitman also stated that due to resource issues relating to Covid-19, a revised plan was agreed as set out on pages 59-67.  Greyed out areas had been removed but many had been deferred to the 2021/22 plan.

41.8   Lastly Mr Pitman highlighted the projects that had progressed in addition to the high priority actions that were overdue.  One was the issue addressed by Paul Wagstaff earlier in the meeting and the other was around Civil Parking which was due to be cleared on 1 April 2021 when new agreements come into place.

41.9   The Committee made comments including those that follow. It:

    Asked if Internal Audit would have the capacity to follow up on all the backlogs. Mr Pitman stated that a plan had been produced covering Q1 and he was confident they had the capacity.

    Asked for clarification what grey book contracts where. Mr Pitman stated they were unique to the Fire Service but that he would find out the detail and report back to Committee.

    Concern that District and Borough Councils deal with Civil Enforcement differently. Mr Pitman confirmed that an outcome of the review was an action to make the agreements the same.

    Ask for clarification as to what will happen with the removed ‘greyed out’ areas. Mr Pitman confirmed all those would be picked up and discussed with the Executive Directors and if still a risk they would feature in the plan.

    Ask for clarification about the overdue or coming up for review issues as listed on page 72. Mr Pitman confirmed they were being focused on and would continually be updated.

 

41.10 Resolved – That the Internal Audit Progress Report be noted.

 

Supporting documents: