Issue - meetings

The report will inform members of the overall adequacy and effectiveness of the system of internal control and risk management operating throughout  2010/11 and present a summary of the audit work undertaken to formulate the opinion, including reliance placed on work by other bodies. The report also fulfils the requirements of the Committee’s terms of reference.

As part of the committee’s terms of reference, they were responsible for considering the annual internal report. This report informed the members of the overall adequacy and effectiveness of the system of internal control and risk management operating throughout 2010/11 and presented a summary of the audit work undertaken to formulate the opinion, including reliance placed on work by other bodies. The committee were further asked to note that the 2006 CIPFA Code of Practice requires the head of Audit and Risk management to report on in order to satisfy the requirements of the CIPFA Code of Practice which were set out in paragraph 15.2 of the report. Appendix A contained the annual report which provided a summary of the internal audit work completed by the council for the last financial year.  The committee were advised that the Head of Audit and Risk management had unrestricted access to all systems, files, and processes to carry out internal audit duties.

The Chair asked the committee to put forward their comments:

Clarification was sought on the methods used for independent assurance on internal controls.  This was done in a combination of ways; the key risks of the council were reported on a quarterly basis to the corporate committee. In terms of the internal reports the individual directors provided a self assessment on their own internal governance control arrangements.   There are further assurances provided by internal audit, external audit and the perspective of other boroughs were also sought when required.

The purpose of the internal audit team was not to specifically audit departments as a whole but investigate and audit systems and processes.  A list could be provided of the areas audited to interested councillors, to enable them to cross reference the areas of concerns.

 In relation to paragraph 3.3 which outlined the work of the housing benefit team on recovering the of fraudulent over payments in housing benefit, understanding was sought on the approach taken to benefit recovery. As assumed by the committee the team would look at the cases where there was good opportunity for the recovery of funds. The team were also able to get   court judgements on holding the assets of fraudulent applicants.

RESOLVED

That the content of the annual audit report and assurance statement for 2010/11 be noted.