Issue - meetings

Report by the Chief Operating Officer

56.1     The Head of Assurance introduced the report and outlined that there were no audit findings below partial insurance, with the exception of some of the schools based audits. There was only one audit below substantial assurance, which was the Schools Themed Review of Federations and Partnerships. Results from the risk and random sample based schools audit work carried out by the Internal Audit Team and Mazars, appear to show an improving picture following the training carried out during the year. There has been some slippage in the delivery of planned audit work due to the level of investigations undertaken and vacancies within the Team. However, the Head of Assurance is confident that the Team will achieve all the work necessary to produce an assurance opinion at the end of the year.

Schools Themed Review of Federations and Partnerships.

56.2     The Assistant Director, Education & ISEND and the Senior Manager, Places and Participation outlined the background to the development of federations and partnerships, which have been part of plans for school improvement for a number of years.  This approach has been developed to address a number of challenges faced by schools, such as school leadership, pressure on budgets and the sharing of expertise. As part of this strategy, criteria have been developed to identify schools which would be benefit from federations and partnerships. As this approach is now being promoted for smaller schools, the Internal Audit Team were invited to examine how the model being used responds to leadership and other challenges.

56.3     The Committee asked what weaknesses had been identified by the review.  The Assistant Director, Education & ISEND explained that the partial assurance conclusion related to supporting schools into federations, rather than the model itself (e.g. follow up work and business planning and visioning). The department is putting business planning training in place to help schools take the most advantage of this arrangement, and articulate a strategic vision for the federation. The Head of Assurance added that when federations are formed, there should be a clear strategy for why the schools are doing this backed by business planning.

56.4     The Committee asked how the Council is generating best practice and best value for financial practices as part of this approach. The Assistant Director, Education & ISEND explained that when developing the model, the department looked at best practice from other local authorities and worked with Devon County Council to develop a range of resources on C-zone section of the Council’s web site to support the process. It has also led a number of sessions with speakers from other federations outside East Sussex to share best practice. The department can also follow up the point made by the Committee on financial best value.

56.5     The Committee thanked the Assistant Director, Education & ISEND and the Senior Manager, Places and Participation and asked that the audit be brought to the attention of the Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee as it may be of interest to them.

56.6     The Committee RESOLVED to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 56

Report by the Chief Operating Officer

35.1     The report was introduced by the Head of Assurance, which provides a summary of the opinions for the audits carried out in Quarter 2. With the exception of schools audits, they were in general positive with none less than substantial assurance opinion. A number of additional audits have been added to the audit plan and there were no outstanding high risk recommendations.

35.2     The Committee were reminded of the approach regarding school audits, with the second phase of randomly selected school audits carried out by Mazars starting in September. At this stage there is an indication that there has been an improvement following the schools training programme.

35.3     The Committee commented that it was pleasing to see the full assurance opinion for the Pension Fund Governance and Investments audit, and the work on the Pensions system Altair data merge to support this project. It also congratulated Internal Audit team on their work and noted the number of positive audit opinions.

35.4     The Head of Assurance confirmed that all the existing items that are outstanding from the schools audit work are scheduled to be followed up and completed by the end of March 2017.

35.5     The Committee RESOLVED:

1)      that no further action should be taken in response to the issues raised in any of the audits carried out during Quarter 2;

2)      there were no new or emerging risks for inclusion in the Internal Audit Plan; and

3)      to congratulate officers on their work.

Report by the Chief Operating Officer

23.1     The Committee considered a report by the Chief Operating Officer which provided a summary of the major findings from the audit reviews completed during first quarter of 2016/17. 

23.2     The Head of Assurance summarised the audit results in the first quarter. There were only two schools audits completed in this quarter. This is because there is a gap between to the two phases of the school audit work being undertaken by Mazars. The Committee noted that poor audit results from schools is a continuing theme.

23.3     The Head of Assurance outlined that one of the Audit Team’s performance indicators is amber, due to the small number of questionnaires received following audits. He is confident this performance indicator will be green by the end of the year.

23.4     The Chair explained that the Committee do not normally review in any detail partial assurance audit opinions. However, the follow up audit judgements for Pension Fund Processes and Systems, and Direct Payments in Adult Social Care (ASC) have not improved since the last audit and warrant further discussion. The Committee asked the Head of Business Operations to outline the background to the audit outcomes and the measures that have been put in place to address the recommendations of the audits.

Pension Fund Processes and Systems

23.5     The Head of Business Operations explained that the first audit was carried out in 2014/15 at a time when the Pension Team were having problems and were missing targets for Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s). This was due largely to having weaknesses in the processes and technology being used, as well as having some team members in the wrong roles. To address these issues, the department launched a two year project to change the Pensions Team, its processes and computer systems.

23.6     The recent audit was an opportunity to get an independent view of the project progress and which identified the need for further improvement. The Pensions Team has now put in place an action plan to implement the recommendations of the recent audit and has been successful in issuing the Annual Pensions Statements and undertaking the triannual revaluation on time. The Pensions Team have continued to improve since the audit.

23.7     The Committee asked a number of questions about work backlogs, the computer system and reconciliation of information with the finance system (SAP), and sought the necessary assurance that these matters had been addressed from the Head of Business Operations.

23.8     The Head of Assurance confirmed that he was happy with proposals that have been made to implement the recommendations from the audit. The Internal Audit Team is involved with providing advice on the introduction of the new computer system and will be auditing new system in the third or fourth quarter this year which will include a further follow up of previous audit recommendations.

Direct Payments (ASC)

23.9     The Head of Business Operations outlined that there are some overlapping concerns between the two audits that had been undertaken, but there were also some new  ...  view the full minutes text for item 23