Agenda item

Report of the Corporate Director Resources and Commercial

The Committee considered a report that set out progress against the 2017/18 Internal Audit and Corporate Anti-fraud plans.  The report also covered progress in Quarter 3 and an update on the Internal Audit annual plan.

The Head of Internal Audit and Corporate Anti-Fraud introduced the report and detailed performance against the performance indicators.  The Committee was informed that overall 42% of the plan had been completed at mid-year which was 3% lower than the target of 45%.  This was due to resources being diverted to three emerging risks in Quarter 2 of 2017/18 as well as the loss of the interim risk management resource requiring a diversion of resources to update the register for Quarters 1 and 2.  With regard to performance indicator 2, there had been a decision to delay four of the follow ups due to the maternity leave of an Assistant Auditor.  These were not expected to determinately effect the achievement of the performance target at year end.

Particular attention was drawn to emerging risks with regard to the regeneration capital programme and special needs transport which would require the diversion of resources.  The Head of Internal Audit and Corporate Anti-Fraud undertook to confirm at the next meeting which parts of the Plan could not be undertaken as a result of diverting resources.

A Member sought further information on Parking Tickets Overpayments and was informed that this work was reaching completion and the assurance would be reported to the Committee in due course.

Another Member sought clarification on whether the investigation regarding payments to Teaching Assistants reflected a widespread issue.  The officer reported that it concerned inappropriate decisions made by a particular school and not the process.  The school concerned had agreed to implement the recommendations when presented to it and any lessons learnt would be fed into the audit work at other schools.

The Committee noted progress against the Corporate Anti Fraud Team Plan 2016/17.  In response to a question from a Member as to whether any new forms of fraud were emerging, the officer stated that there was nothing of major concern.  It was a continual process in conjunction with a proactive London group and information was drawn from a number of different resources.

With regard to a question on the outcomes and savings summary mid year 2017-18, it was noted some were live and some closed off.  A Member suggested that it would be helpful to know how many were live.  Another Member sought clarification as to whether the savings, £1.47m at mid year point, represented an equilibrium of staffing against savings.  The officer informed the Committee that as a high proportion of anti-fraud work was preventative there was not an income stream.  Whilst an additional staff member would no doubt identify fraud loss or potential fraud loss there was no direct cashable benefit and investigative fraud was not seen as a profit centre.

A Member suggested that colour coding of objectives would be helpful to ascertain how vital the objective was and the impact if it was not met.  The Corporate Director Resources and Commercial assured Members that the objectives were reviewed during the year with oversight by himself and the Head of Internal Audit and Corporate Anti-Fraud and if anything serious was not on track it would be dealt with.

RESOLVED:  That the report be noted.