Gary Clifford presented the Internal Audit Charter which was a formal document that defined the Internal Audit Services’ purpose, authority and responsibility. The Internal Audit Charter established Internal Audit's position within the Council, including the nature of the Head of Internal Audit's functional reporting relationship with the Standards & Audit Committee, authorised access to records, personnel and physical properties relevant to the performance of engagements and defined the scope of internal audit activities. The final approval of the Internal Audit Charter lays with the Standards & Audit Committee.

Councillor Collins thanked Gary Clifford for the detailed report and questioned the concerns made at the last committee about staff numbers within the audit team and whether the team were now at full complement to which Gary Clifford stated he was in the process of putting together a business case for new staff as another member of his team was leaving which would make the team smaller. Councillor Collins questioned whether there were difficulties in filling those posts to which Gary Clifford stated the Council currently had restrictions in place on recruitment and that the business case would make a case for those new members of staff and was being worked on urgently.

Councillor C Kent questioned with the team not being at full complement, was the team able to fulfil the programme of audits that had already been planned. Members were referred to the six month rolling plan that Council moved to in March 2021. In terms of audits that needed to be undertaken, these would be fulfilled for that six month rolling plan. However, this may take longer than the six months and then audits would be undertaken on the basis of those deemed to be of the highest priority.

Councillor Ononaji referred to the objectives set out in the report and questioned whether there were any key performance indicators on how those objectives would be measured. Gary Clifford stated that those would be built into the annual report to which Councillor Ononaji requested that these be incorporated into reports in the future.

Councillor Snell referred to the complaints report and the maladministration findings that some of the processes that were not being followed by Council staff and enquired whether if these were part of an audit would they be picked up, and if so, how these would be recorded and what influence the audit team would have in preventing issues going forward. Gary Clifford stated that periodically, work was undertaken around the complaints process and looked at how Lee Henley’s team processed complaints. In addition, complaints within service areas may also be looked at and relevant recommendations made. Councillor Snell questioned whether a failure of a member of staff not following a process would be picked up and whether Internal Audit would identify that failure as part of the process at a particular stage. Gary Clifford stated it should be picked up and reported in the internal reports as a failure around the controls.

Councillor C Kent thanked Gary Clifford for the report.

RESOLVED

That the Standards and Audit Committee approved the internal Audit Charter 2021 and the Chair of the Standards & Audit Committee signed the Charter on behalf of the Committee.