Issue - meetings

This report details the work undertaken by Internal Audit in the period 1 September to 31 December 2025 and focuses on progress on internal audit coverage relative to the approved internal audit plan, including the number of audit reports issued and finalised - work undertaken by the external provider (Forvis Mazars).

Mr Minesh Jani, Head of Audit and Risk Assurance, introduced the report.

The meeting heard:

·         The outstanding recommendations from 2023 and 2024 related to the value for money opinions from external audit. These recommendations were ones that would take time to implement because of the nature of the recommendations themselves. They fell into the two broad areas; Procurement and Commercial Property.

·         Part of the tracking of audit recommendations was setting a revised timeline with management, ensuring officers were realistic and provided an accurate indication from management of the status over the implementation of recommendations before being independently audited by internal audit. When internal audit carried out their follow up audit, the control would be tested to see if it was working. For the financial assessment audit, this would be tracked via a live document and the same was true for Housing. It was possible to examine the progress of actions. It would also be subject to discussion at management team meetings.

·         There had been a backlog of where things had not been done the way they should have been done, but the culture on this had shifted. Some in-year actions were being closed off.

·         Residents claiming housing benefit would report a change of circumstance to the Council and the Council had a certain time frame within which the Council had to make the change. If the change was not made quickly enough, there may be an overpayment of housing benefit. The DWP had strict criteria for determining whose fault it was when overpayments occurred. If the fault was attributed to the local authority if that fault exceeded a small threshold, then the amount of subsidy to the authority would be reduced resulting in a in a financial loss. To minimise any potential loss, the Council needed to act as soon as it became aware of a change of circumstance.

·         In relation to housing benefit overpayment, a change of circumstances was not always predictable and service had to anticipate and manage the change as soon it could at a level that was comfortable for the Council. There had been some issues around housing benefit overpayments many years ago and the Council was able to get an external provider to support the management of the housing benefit system. There was however an issue with staff capacity. The Council had no power to investigate housing benefit fraud. Any submitted would have to be referred to the DWP. 

·         In relation to the priority 1 recommendations, the Housing servicewould be asked for an update and the Committee would be informed via email.

RESOLVED:

To note the audit coverage and follow up work completed.