The Committee is asked to note any apologies for absence and substitutions received from Members.

An apology for absence was submitted on behalf of Councillor Platt (with no substitute appointed).

To confirm and sign as a correct record, the minutes of the last meeting of the Committee, held on Monday 9 December 2024.

It was moved by Councillor Sudra, seconded by Councillor Fairley and:-

RESOLVED that the Minutes of the meeting of the Committee, held on 9 December 2024, be approved as a correct record and be signed by the Chairman.

Resources and Services

There were no declarations of interest by Councillors in relation to any item on the agenda for this meeting.

Subject to providing two working days’ notice, a Member of the Committee may ask the Chairman of the Committee a question on any matter in relation to which the Council has powers or duties which affect the Tendring District and which falls within the terms of reference of the Committee.

On this occasion no Councillor had submitted notice of a question pursuant to Council Procedure Rule 38.

To provide a progress report on the Internal Audit function for the period September 2024 – December 2024.

The Committee was provided with a periodic report on the Internal Audit function for the period September 2024 to December 2024.

That report was summarised as follows:-

·      A total of eight audits had been completed since the previous update in September 2024.

·      Seven out of eight audits in this period had received a satisfactory level of assurance. Disabled Facilities Grants and Council Adaptations had received an overall ‘Improvement Required’ opinion.

·      It was requested that the Careline Follow Up Audit be deferred as decisions were still to be made on the future of the service. This was a total of five audit days that the Internal Audit Manager wanted to reallocate to the Payroll audit as a brand new system had been implemented and it was believed that the audit could take longer than originally anticipated.

·      As the Internal Audit Manager was providing the updates on Risk Management whilst the Assurance and Resilience Manager remained on secondment it was requested that the related audit be deferred and the five allocated days be used towards current and future updates on Risk Management until the responsible officer returned.

·      During this period an issue had arisen relating to a substantial precept payment being paid incorrectly to the incorrect Parish Council. The funds had been recovered in full and the issue resolved, however it had identified a weakness in control that needed to be resolved.

INTERNAL AUDIT PROGRESS 2024/25

It was reported that a total number of eight audits had been completed during the period of September 2024 to December 2024. Seven out of the eight audits in this period had received a satisfactory level of assurance. The Disabled Facilities Grants and Council Adaptations had received an overall ‘Improvement Required’ opinion.

A further eight audits from the 2024/25 Internal Audit Plan were in the fieldwork phase. The final six audits from the plan had been allocated based on the available resource.

The Internal Audit Manager requested that the Careline Follow Up Audit be deferred as decisions were still to be made on the future of the service. This was a total of five audit days that he wanted to reallocate to the Payroll audit as a brand new system had been implemented and it was believed that the audit would take longer than originally anticipated. Many processes and controls had had to change during the implementation of the ITrent HR/Payroll system and some of those processes were now shared between both departments, therefore reallocating the five days from the Careline review would provide more time for the auditors to get a better understanding of the system.

As the Internal Audit Manager was still providing the updates on Risk Management whilst the Assurance and Resilience Manager remained on secondment it was requested that the related audit be deferred and the five allocated days be used towards current and future updates on Risk Management until the responsible officer returned.

Members were informed that the Team were currently at the same stage as last year in terms of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 57.

To present to the Audit Committee the updated Corporate Risk Register.

The Committee considered the updated Corporate Risk Register which was normally updated and presented to the Committee every six months. The Register had been last presented in April 2024.

The following table summarised the position at the end of the period under review with updated information provided within the register where necessary:-

Corporate Risk Management Framework

It was anticipated that there would be a need to change the responsibilities section of the risk management framework soon due to changes in roles. No changes had been made at this time. The assessment criteria and objectives of the framework currently remained the same. The framework had been included at Appendix A of the Internal Audit Manager’s report following a recent review and was for Members’ information only.

Corporate Risk Register

The Committee was informed that the register had been subject to the review process with all officers responsible for the risks identified within the risk register, with some highlights as follows:-

·      Financial Strategy, IT Security, Data Protection and Coastal Defence remained as high risk on the Corporate Risk Register. The responsible officers had provided an update on the ‘Current Action Status’ of the risk register.

·      The Human Resource risks around lack of capacity and loss of key staff had now been merged as one risk. Although both were separate issues, they had the same impact on the Council with regards to not being able to deliver key services. Additional sub-risks with mitigation had been included within the ‘Current Action Status’ of the overarching corporate risk.

·      The changes to the Corporate Risk Register set out in this report reflected minor changes undertaken since the Committee had last considered the register in April 2024. It provided updates, where needed and revised changing deadlines.

The Internal Audit Manager recommended that a further review be undertaken to determine where some risks could now be removed or potentially merged. Examples of this could be to remove risk 2d – Transforming Tendring Project as the Council’s transformation project had been completed several years ago or risk 2e – Essex Family Solutions as it was now a partnership between ECC and TDC and therefore no longer considered a significant corporate risk.

There might also be an opportunity to merge some risks such as IT Security and Information Management risks potentially reducing four risks to one or two. This was because all those risks were managed centrally with the same controls and procedures reducing the inherent risk for all areas identified.

The Committee noted that the Internal Audit Team had been working with the IT department to build an in-house system to manage Business Impact Assessments (BIA) for all services across the Council. The Internal Audit Manager had now collected all BIA’s required. Some final testing of the system was being undertaken before all BIA’s were uploaded. This would allow all departments to log in and update their risks  ...  view the full minutes text for item 58.

To present to the Committee the progress on outstanding actions identified by the Committee along with general updates on other issues that fall within the responsibilities of the Committee.

The Committee had before it a report (A.3) that reported progress on the outstanding actions identified by the Committee along with general updates on other issues that fell within the responsibilities of the Committee.

Table of Outstanding Issues

It was reported that the Table of Outstanding Issues had been reviewed and updated since it had been last considered by the Committee in September 2024.

There were two main elements to this report as follows:-

1)    Updates against general items raised by the Committee – Appendix A; and

2)    Updates against the 2023/24 Annual Governance Statement Action Plan – Appendix B

In terms of item 1) above, there were no significant issues to raise, with actions remaining in progress or further details provided within the report.

The Committee was informed that, in respect of the 2023/24 Annual Governance Statement Action Plan, although this remained subject to the Committee’s final approval later in the year once the work of the External Auditor was completed, for timely and practical reasons the version currently published at the end of May 2024 alongside the Unaudited Statement of Accounts presented the most up to date position for the Committee’s consideration.  This approach enabled the actions and associated updates to be considered as early as possible within the Committee’s annual work programme. Appendix B therefore included outstanding items from last year’s Annual Governance Statement alongside new items for the current year. There were no significant issues to highlight at the present time with actions and activities remaining on-going, with the plan subject to amendment following the completion of the external audit process.

Appointment of Independent Person(s) to the Audit Committee

Members were informed that it had been originally planned to present a draft person specification to this meeting of the Committee, however due to several competing priorities it was now planned to present this to the Committee at its March 2025 meeting.  Although this had introduced a slight delay to the process it would still be possible to carry out the necessary process to enable an Independent Person to be appointed to the Committee as early as possible in 2025/26.

External Funding Review

As highlighted within the report to the Audit Committee at its September 2024 meeting, the Committee had been asked by Cabinet for their support and assurance on the associated governance processes.  This item had now been captured within Appendix A with further updates to be presented to future meetings of the Committee.

External Audit Delays

Members recalled that the outstanding Statement of Accounts and associated External Auditor’s reports for the years up to and including 2022/23 had been considered and agreed by the Committee at its December 2024 meeting. Although it had been hoped to present the Statement of Accounts and associated external auditor reports for 2023/24 to this meeting of the Committee, work remained ongoing to finalise the position, and it was therefore proposed to seek to arrange a special meeting of the Committee in early February 2024 to consider that item.

Local  ...  view the full minutes text for item 59.

The Director (Finance & IT) informed Members that the Chairman of the Committee (Councillor Sudra) had agreed that a special meeting of the Committee would be held on Thursday 13 February 2025, commencing at 10.30 a.m. in the Committee Room, at the Town hall, station Road, Clacton-on-Sea.

The purpose of the meeting would be to enable the Committee to consider the outstanding Statement of Accounts and associated External Auditor’s reports for 2023/2024.

The Committee noted the foregoing.