Issue - meetings

To receive and consider report 38/08 of the Audit Manager. 

Introduction and Report Summary

The purpose of this report is: to summarise the outcomes of recent internal audit activity for the Committee to consider.  The Committee is asked to review the report and the main issues arising, and seek assurance that action will be/has been taken where necessary.

The Contact Officer for this report is Adrianna Penn, Audit Manager for South Oxfordshire District Council and Vale of White Horse District Council, telephone (SODC) 01491 823544 and (VWHDC) 01235 547615.

Recommendation

that Members note the content of the report. 

The Committee received and considered report 38/08 of the Audit Manager, which summarised the outcomes of recent internal audit activity for the Committee to consider.  The Committee reviewed the report and the main issues arising and sought assurance that action would be taken where necessary. 

The Committee noted that there were seventeen audit reports that had been completed in the period since its last meeting.  Most had resulted in Internal Audit awarding a 'satisfactory' or 'full' assurance rating.  Members were generally satisfied with the outcome of these audits but asked for further assurance in the five audits that had only achieved a 'limited' assurance rating and sought answers in some cases where a satisfactory rating had been given. 

Creditor Payments

A limited assurance rating had been given to this service following the recent audit.  Members asked several questions. 

Members noted that a member of staff who had left Capita's employment had had their User ID retained to enable reports to be run.  Members noted that the password had been changed since and the former member of staff would no longer be able to access the Agresso system. 

It was reported that the Best Value Performance Indicator 8, regarding the payment of invoices on time, was more complicated to collate under the new version of the Agresso software.  A request had been made to Agresso to fix this problem.  In the meantime a solution had been agreed and it was hoped that this would be introduced over the next month. 

The Chief Finance Officer accepted that there had previously been an issue over the same member of staff being able to requisition an order and approve it.  However, this was no longer possible under the latest version of the Agresso software.  Controls had been introduced to stop this. 

With regard to the process for checking that duplicate payments were not made, it was noted that these checks were made every month following the receipt of a report from Capita.  Members felt that monthly checks should be made a standard. 

Members noted that the Financial Regulations would be reviewed this summer and were due to be considered by the Constitution Advisory Group in September. 

Elections

Although this audit had resulted in a satisfactory assurance rating, a concern was expressed at the security at election counts.  It was requested that this should be fed back to the Elections manager for consideration.  Also, Members sought to know whether this Council submitted reports to the Government on fraud monitoring during an election.  The Audit Manager agreed to take this up with the service manager. 

White Horse Leisure and Tennis Centre

This audit had received a 'limited' assurance rating.  It was noted that the managers responsible for this service were unable to attend the meeting due to other commitments.  In the absence of the relevant manager, it was agreed to defer this audit report to the next meeting of the Committee in September. 

Members raised a point about contract monitoring generally, not just this contract.  They  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8