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

No apologies for absence or substitutions were received or notified on this occasion.

To confirm and sign as a correct record, the minutes of the last meeting of the Committee, held on Thursday 26 June 2025.

It was unanimously RESOLVED that the Minutes of the meeting of the Committee, held on 26^th June 2025, be approved as a correct record and be signed by the Chairman.

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

There were no declarations of interest made 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 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.

It had been decided by the Chairman of the Committee to allow the Chief Executive and Corporate Governance, Performance & Procurement Manager to address the Committee on the Table of Outstanding Issues (report A.3) prior to consideration of the remaining agenda items.

Members heard that the Table of Outstanding Issues had been reviewed and updated since it had been last considered by the Committee in June 2025.

There had been three main ongoing elements to this report as follows:

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

2)    Updates against the 2024/25 Annual Governance Statement Action Plan – Appendix B

3)    Updates against recommendations made by the External Auditor – Appendix C

In terms of items 1 and 3 above, there had been no significant issues to raise, with actions having remained in progress or further details set out within the report (A.3). 

It was reported that, in respect of the 2024/25 Annual Governance Statement Action Plan, although that remained subject to the Committee’s final approval later in the year once the work of the External Auditor had been completed, for timely and practical reasons the version that had been published at the end of June 2025 alongside the Unaudited Statement of Accounts presented the most up to date position for the Committee’s consideration.  Similarly to last year, that approach had 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 had been no significant issues to highlight at the present time with actions and activities having remained on-going.

Local Audit Reform

Within previous reports, timely updates to the various audit reforms announced by the Government had been included with a summary as follows:

• Simplification and Streamlining: The reforms had aimed to simplify financial reportingrequirements and streamline the audit process to make it more efficient;
• Increased Capacity: Efforts would be made to increase the capacity of the audit sector, reducing reliance on a small number of auditors;
• Funding Support: Up to £49 million in funding would be provided to help local authorities clear audit backlogs and cover additional costs;
• New Local Audit Office: A new Local Audit Office would be established to coordinate functions currently spread across multiple organizations, such as the National Audit Office and the Financial Reporting Council; and
• Transparency and Accountability: The reforms had been designed to restore public trust in how councils managed and reported their finances, to ensure better value for taxpayers.

The various associated activities had remained ongoing, with a number of matters set out within the Government’s recently announced English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill 2025, which included the following:

• The establishment of the Local Audit Office to oversee the local audit system in England with its main objectives  to secure the effective operation of the system of audit with a view to meeting the needs of users of the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 14.

To provide a periodic report on the Internal Audit function for the period June 2025 – August 2025 and to provide an update on the Internal Audit Charter for approval by the Audit Committee as required by the professional standards.

The Committee was informed that the Global Internal Audit Standards had required the Internal Audit Manager to make arrangements for reporting to senior management (Management Board) 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.

Four audits had been completed since the last Audit Committee meeting in June 2025. Three of the audits had received a satisfactory level of overall assurance of ‘Adequate Assurance’ or ‘Substantial Assurance’.

The Housing Repairs and Maintenance audit had received an overall opinion of ‘Improvement Required’.

A further 13 audits from the 2025/26 Internal Audit Plan had been allocated and seven had currently been at the fieldwork phase.

The Internal Audit manager informed Members that his team had been in the ‘Key Systems’ phase of the audit plan where all financial and core service systems and processes had been reviewed. Each area had been tried and tested that was very important to the Council’s day-to-day activities. They had not anticipated any significant issues in that area as historically those issues had been well managed; however, the Internal Audit Manager had highlighted that it had been important to ensure that those systems and processes continued to work as expected and remained well controlled.

Fraud and Compliance work had been ongoing in that period along with GDPR priorities particularly relating to data sharing agreements, Freedom of Information Requests and Subject Access Requests.

Quality Assurance – The Internal Audit function issued satisfaction surveys for each audit completed. No unsatisfactory responses had been received in that period. 

Resourcing

It was reported that the Internal Audit team currently had an establishment of 4 full time employment posts with access to a third-party provider of Internal Audit Services for specialist audit days as and when required. The Internal Audit Team currently had an Audit Technician post vacant. They currently had had an apprentice within the team for nearly a year who had been continuing to develop well and had currently been undertaking the administrative responsibilities for the Audit, Fraud and Compliance functions.

Outcomes of Internal Audit Work

The Public Sector Internal Audit Standards had required the Internal Audit manager to report to the Audit Committee on significant risk exposures and control issues. Since the last report four audits had been completed and the final report issued.

For the purpose of the colour coding approach, both the substantial and adequate opinions had been shown in green as both were within acceptable tolerances.

Issues arising from audits completed in the period under review receiving an ‘Improvement Required’ opinion and requiring reporting to Committee were: -

Housing Repairs and Maintenance

Issue

The Committee was made aware that there had been a number of contractors with annual  ...  view the full minutes text for item 15.

To present for consideration the External Auditor’s Interim Annual Report for the year ended 31 March 2025.

Members heard that, during the year, a number of reports had been issued by the Council’s External Auditor as part of their work associated with the Statement of Accounts and review of the Council’s arrangements to secure value for money.

The first such report had been their Audit Plan and Strategy that had been presented to the Audit Committee in March 2025. That report had set out the various elements of the work that the External Auditor had planned on undertaking in respect of the year ending 31 March 2025 and had included their value for money risk assessment / approach that was set against the following three key elements:

1.    Financial Sustainability;

2.    Governance; and

3.    Improving economy, efficiency and effectiveness.

The External Auditors had now broadly completed their work associated with their value for money review.

The Committee was reminded that, ordinarily, this would be presented alongside the outcome of their work on the Council’s Statement of Accounts within their final annual report for the year, but due to the back stop date arrangements introduced by the Government in response to the national recovery from the previous years’ audit delays, they had been required to publish their value for money commentary for 2024/25 by 30 November 2025. 

The External Auditor would continue their work associated with the wider Statement of Accounts review, with the aim of reporting their findings within a final annual report for the year by the back stop date for the publication of the audited accounts, which for 2024/25 would be 27 February 2026.

It was reported that, to meet the 30 November 2025 deadline associated with reporting value for the money issues highlighted, the External Auditors had helpfully issued an interim Annual Report, which had been attached to the main agenda report (Appendix A) and had set out the outcome of their work to date.

The outcome had been welcomed with no significant risks associated with the Council’s value for money arrangements across the aforementioned 3 key areas.

The External Auditor had revisited the recommendations they had made last year within the attached interim report. The Council’s planned responses had now either been put in place or had remained on-going, which had been reported separately to the Audit Committee as part of providing the necessary assurances.

The Committee was informed that the External Auditors had made a recommendation within their report (page 15 of Appendix A), which had also included a management response. In respect of the proposed management response set out, it had been worth emphasising that there would be a number of practical opportunities over the next couple of years to address the point raised as part of the planning and implementation phases associated with Local Government Reorganisation, which would include activities such as contracts, procurement and performance.

In addition to the above, and having followed the Government’s closure of OFLOG and sought alternative ways to support improvement, the Government had recently announced the introduction of a Local Government Outcomes Framework, which  ...  view the full minutes text for item 16.