Issue - meetings

Report of the Head of Audit and Risk Management to provide a final version of the statutory Annual Governance Statement, and supporting evidence matrix relating to 2008/09 for information.

Anne Woods, Head of Audit and Risk Management, presented the report on the final Annual Governance Statement, which had been amended to take into account all of the comments made by the Committee when the draft Annual Governance Statement had been considered at the previous meeting. It was reported that final version of the statement had been presented to the General Purposes Committee for approval.

The Chair commented that, as the final version had been approved, there was no scope for any further changes to be made to the statement, but noted that appendix 2 had been erroneously duplicated in the paperwork and that the duplicate version should be disregarded. The Chair also noted that the statement would need to be signed off finally when the audit of the accounts was finalised, and could be amended to reflect any new issues arising between now and the final sign-off on 30 September 2009.

The Chair noted that the statement recognised that the scope of the internal audit plan included non-financial systems as well as financial systems, and added, in respect of paragraphs 4.7 and 4.9 of the report, that the Audit Committee was responsible for ensuring that all recommendations were implemented, not just those at priority 1, in order to ensure best practice. The Chair requested that officers consider amending the wording to reflect this in paragraphs 4.7 and 4.9 of the statement, if any opportunity to modify the wording arose.

RESOLVED

That the final version of the Annual Governance Statement and supporting evidence matrix for 2008/09 be noted.