Agenda item

Report of the Head of Audit and Risk Management to inform Members of the Committee’s proposed annual work plan for the 2009/10 municipal year.

The Head of Audit and Risk Management presented a report on the proposed annual work plan for the 2009/10 municipal year. The work plan included the standard quarterly items presented to the Committee, and also incorporated other pieces of work that were already planned during the course of the year. The report demonstrated the link between the work planned and the terms of reference of the Committee.

The Chair expressed concern that the plan did not currently include the periodical update on progress with recommendations from all external audits and inspections, as requested by the Committee, and it was agreed that this would be added to the work plan.

The Chair requested that, in addition to the planned work detailed in the work plan, the Committee must be advised by the Chief Financial Officer of any issues arising that the Committee needed to be aware of in the fulfilment of its duties.

Following the discussion earlier in the meeting regarding the draft AGS, it was requested that an update on this item be added to the Committee agenda for the 30 July meeting and added to the work plan.

The Committee requested that a central record should be kept of all the requests and recommendations made by the Audit Committee, giving details of the action requested, the officer responsible for the action and a deadline for completion, as this would facilitate the management and monitoring of actions requested by the Committee. This list should be monitored by the Committee on a quarterly basis to ensure that follow up action was being taken.

The Committee had resolved at a previous meeting that, where audit recommendations had not been implemented within the deadline set, the relevant Heads of Service would be required to attend the Committee meetings to explain the reasons for this. The Committee also discussed the possibility of requiring Heads of Service to attend on regular basis in order to answer questions from Committee members on audit issues such as priority 1 recommendations not being completed on time. Concern was expressed that implementing a regular programme of officers attending the Committee may be beyond the remit of the Audit Committee but it was felt that it would be useful for Members to be able to ask relevant officers questions regarding key areas of governance. It was suggested that, where a significant internal or external inspection report had been completed, the relevant officer should attend the Committee to address the issues raised by the report and also to answer questions from the Committee on other audit and governance arrangements within their Service. It was agreed that, as an update report on Environment was on the agenda for the next meeting, the Director of Urban Environment should attend. This would be in addition to any Heads of Service attending the Committee.

The Committee raised the issue of it not being possible for the Committee to approve the revised version of the AGS prior to submission due to the dates of the meetings. It was agreed that in future the dates would be arranged to ensure that the Committee could see the draft a second time to ensure that all the Committee’s comments had been taken on board. A member of the Committee also raised an issue relating to the decisions made at the previous meeting, in response to which the Chair replied that he usually monitored the outcome of the decisions made, with the Chief Financial Officer.

RESOLVED

i)          That, with the additions and comments of the Committee members, the annual work plan for 2009/10 be approved.

ii)        That a central record should be kept of all the requests and recommendations made by the Audit Committee, giving details of the action requested, the officer responsible for the action and a deadline for completion.

iii)       Six monthly updates of the progress of all audits by various Audit agencies, including Ofsted, Social Service Audit, Care Quality Commission Inspection Reports, Health Care Commission and others be included in the work plan.