Agenda item

Report by the Chief Operating Officer

55.1     The Head of Assurance introduced the report. The Internal Audit Strategy 2017/18 and Annual Plan reflects the risks identified throughout the organisation in liaison Officers and the Audit, Best Value and Community Service (ABVCS) Scrutiny Committee, who had a briefing and commented on the draft Plan in January. The number of audit work plan days allocated to undertake the Plan is set out in the report and is judged to be sufficient to form the annual assurance opinion at the end of the year.

55.2     The Internal Audit Team will co-ordinate audits with the other Orbis Partners and will look for opportunities to share internal audit skills across the three Orbis Partners. There will be some commonality of risks between authorities, so there may be opportunities to combine audits. As a result of this joint working, some of the audits on the Plan may be delivered by auditors from the other Orbis Partners.

55.3     The Chair thanked Officers for their work and performance against the audit plan days. The Head of Assurance explained that in future there will be less focus on the delivery of the number of audit plan days and more focus on assurance coverage. The use of data analytics to automate some of the work will mean the number of audit plan days will become less important as a measure of assurance.

55.4     The Head of Assurance outlined the role of data analytics work developed from national strategies. Current work is focussed on using these tools and how the results will feed into the assurance framework. For example, detecting duplicate payments already has an automated process, so there is a financial control and audit process.

55.5     The Committee discussed a number of audits within the Internal Audit Plan and made the following comments:

·          East Sussex Better Together (ESBT), Connecting 4U and the Accountable Care Model. The Head of Assurance outlined that this will be a complex area of work which will identify risk, support transition and examine delivery. The Internal Audit Team have set aside a significant number of audit days for this work. The Interim Chief Finance Officer added that ESBT is one of most significant risks for the Council and this has already been discussed with the External Auditors. Regular updates on ESBT will be provided in the quarterly Internal Audit Progress reports.

·          Apprenticeship Levy - The Committee asked if the audit will look at recruitment and retention issues. The Head of Assurance responded that the scope of this audit has not been defined yet, but is happy to consider recruitment and retention issues in the scope of audit.

·          Audit of the Waste Contract – The Chair explained that a review of the Waste Contract is on the Work Programme for the Committee. This had been flagged up by the Committee as an area of potential joint scrutiny work with the Economy, Transport and Environment (ETE) Scrutiny Committee. However, the scope of the work has not been fully agreed with the ETE Scrutiny Committee. The Head of Assurance responded that the audit will concentrate on the operation of the Waste Contract.

55.6     The Committee RESOLVED to endorse the Internal Audit Strategy 2017/18 and Annual Plan.