To note the second progress report on the internal audit plan for 2023/24 as presented by the Council’s internal auditors, South West Audit Partnership (SWAP).

Lisa Fryer, South West Audit Partnership (SWAP), outlined the progress report which covered the period up to November. The report gave the Committee an update on how internal audit were delivering on the agreed plan and any changes to the plan. SWAP had started work on over half of the plan while seven audits had now been finalised. There were two changes to the plan since the last Committee update, with the two audits deferred to next year’s plan. Work had started on auditing the strategic risks and it was hoped that most would be covered. The internal audit plan for 24/25 would be set at the next Committee in February 2024 and it was expected that audits would be included which were based around strategic risks. Monitoring showed that on audits given limited assurance there had been some progress towards implementation of actions suggested. A number of follow ups were scheduled in Q4 of the internal audit plan.

The Committee had been given summaries of the limited assurance audits in the report. Lisa Fryer commented on the health and safety premises risks as a high corporate risk had been reported which was due to an absence of service level agreements where premises were shared. An action plan had been agreed to ensure that roles and responsibilities along with safety policies were produced, this would apply to all lease and partnership arrangements. A follow up piece of work had been undertaken on delegated decision making, good progress had been made in this area. All finalised audits were available via Microsoft Teams.

Councillor Wilson felt that the summary of the audits could contain some more detail.

Lisa Fryer said that the most significant findings were reported in the summary, to add in all of the findings would increase the length of reports considerably. The full report was available on Microsoft Teams.

Councillor Wilson highlighted the children’s early intervention review and the finding that Achieving for Children did not hold the data necessary to monitor the effectiveness of the strategy.

Lisa Fryer said that as part of the audit a survey was undertaken with schools and the feedback had been positive. However, the objective of the audit was to see whether aims were being achieved and this could not be measured.

Kevin McDaniel, Executive Director of Adult Social Care and Health, said that the early intervention system could be measured on a case by case basis on the outcomes with the specific family, in an ‘outcome STAR model’. The question asked in the audit was around whether early intervention had stopped families needing care services later on and this was something which could not currently be measured.

The Chair asked about governance of property leases and whether that was an issue with the RBWM Property Company and the length of time making decisions.

Lisa Fryer said that the Property Company had put forward the audit, one of the concerns they had was around the delegation arrangements in place slowed things down and this was supported by evidence in the audit.

AGREED UNANIMOUSLY: That the Audit and Governance Committee noted the report.