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

An apology was received from Councillor Platt (with no substitution).

To confirm and sign as a correct record, the minutes of the last meeting of the Committee, held on Thursday 25 April 2024.

It was RESOLVED that the Minutes of the meeting of the Committee, held on 25 April 2024, be approved as a correct record and be signed by the Chairman.

Councillors are invited to declare any Disclosable Pecuniary Interests, Other Registerable Interests of Non-Registerable Interests, and the nature of it, in relation to any item on the agenda.

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 submitted notice of a question.

To provide the Committee with a periodic report on the Internal Audit function for the period March 2024 – May 2024, as required by the professional standards and the Internal Audit Managers Annual Report for 2023/24 as required by the professional standards.

The Committee had before it a periodic report on the Internal Audit function for the period March 2024 – May 2024, and the Internal Audit Manager’s Annual Report for 2023/24 was delivered as required by the professional standards.

The report was split into three sections:

1.    Internal Audit Progress 2024/25

2.    Annual Report of Internal Audit Manager

3.    Internal Audit Plan Progress

The report outlined how the Council had a statutory responsibility to maintain adequate and effective internal audit. The Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015 made it a statutory requirement that the Council must undertake an effective internal audit to evaluate the effectiveness of its risk management, control and governance processes, taking into account public sector internal audit standards and guidance.

The Members heard how the  Public Sector Internal Audit Standards required the Chief Internal Auditor (Internal Audit Manager) to make arrangements for reporting to senior management (Management Team) and to the board (Audit Committee) during the course of the year, and for producing an annual Internal Audit opinion and report that could be used to inform the Annual Governance Statement.

The Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015 required that “a relevant authority undertook an effective internal audit to evaluate the effectiveness of its risk management, control and governance processes, taking into account public sector internal auditing standards or guidance”.

In respect of the Internal Audit Plan, the Public Sector Internal Audit Standards required the Internal Audit Manager to: -

• Establish a risk-based Internal Audit Plan, at least annually, to determine the priorities   of the Internal Audit function, consistent with the Council’s goals.

• Have in place a mechanism to review and adjust the plan, as necessary, in response to changes to the Council’s business, risks, operations, programmes, systems and controls.

• Produce a plan that took into account the need to produce an annual Internal Audit opinion.

• Consider the input of senior management and the Audit Committee in producing the plan.

• Assess the Internal Audit resource requirements.

The Committee heard that all expected audits for the 2023/24 Internal Audit Plan had been completed. That a total number of six audits were completed during April 2024 to June 2024. One audit in this period received an overall opinion of ‘Improvement Required’ (Project Management) with the other five receiving satisfactory assurance opinions with no significant issues being identified. Internal Audit continued to provide advice on internal control, risk management and governance arrangements on a consultative basis.

The Committee also heard how the Council remained focused on delivering the message that Internal Audit supported services and by letting Internal Audit know about policy and procedural changes, difficult circumstances or just the unknown due to working on new projects/initiatives, Internal Audit could advise and support at an early stage rather than create additional work at a later date if governance or internal control issues were identified during an audit.

The Internal Audit Manager continued to oversee Fraud and Compliance service as well as the Internal Audit team while the Assurance  ...  view the full minutes text for item 39.

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 was joined (remotely) by the Councils external auditors. Steve Bladen (BDO) updated the Committee on the position on the uncompleted audits. He explained that the audit for 2021/22 should be completed by 30 September 2024. For the audits from 2022/23, they were waiting on Central Government to come forward with its plan as no back top dates had been issued as of the time of the meeting. Once that plan was announced by Government, they would start work on finishing those audits.

Emma Larcombe (KPMG) explained that they are waiting for the audits from 2022/23 to close so they can make headway with the 2023/24 audit. She pointed out that they were undertaking some work they were able to do, but need to the new back stop date from Government and the 2022/23 audits closed.

The Committee had before it a report that progressed on outstanding actions identified by the Committee along with general updates on other issues that fell within the responsibilities of the Committee.

It was reported to Members that the Table of Outstanding Issues had been reviewed and updated since it was last considered by the Committee in April 2024 and that there were two main elements to this report as follows:

1) Updates against general items raised by the Committee

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

In terms of item 1) above, there were no significant issues raised, actions remained in progress or further details set out below. 

The Committee also heard that it was important to highlight the action set out in Appendix A, that related to the appointment of Independent Persons to the Audit Committee.  Within CIPFA’s most recently published position statement on Audit Committees In Local Authorities and Police, they highlighted a number of considerations that would be reflected in the proposed / upcoming review of the effectiveness of the Audit Committee along with the following key considerations that related to Independent Persons [extract from the guidance]: 

• “The audit committees of local authorities should include co-opted independent members in accordance with the appropriate legislation. Where there is no legislative direction to include co-opted independent members, CIPFA recommends that each authority audit committee should include at least two co-opted independent members to provide appropriate technical expertise

• When selecting elected representatives to be on the committee or when co-opting independent members, aptitude should be considered alongside relevant knowledge, skills and experience.

• The appointment of co-opted independent members on the committee should consider the overall knowledge and expertise of the existing members”.

The Members heard that a recommendation was set earlier in the report that sought the Audit Committees endorsement of appointing at least two Independent Persons to the Committee in-line with CIPFA’s guidance and requested Officers to explore the necessary activities that needed to be undertaken for reporting back to the next meeting of the Committee.

It was also highlighted that an item on the Audit Committee’s Work Programme that was approved at their meeting in April 2024  ...  view the full minutes text for item 40.