Issue - meetings

To consider report 6/11 introduced and presented by the audit manager. 

The committee considered report 6/11 of the audit manager.  This summarised the outcome of recent internal audit activity.  Since the committee’s last meeting, internal audit had completed thirteen audits and three follow-up reviews.  The committee discussed the audits that had received a limited assurance. 

ICT

It was reported that Capita was now receiving human resources’ updates when staff left the council, so their access to the council’s financial management system could be terminated.  A new helpdesk call management system would be introduced bringing improvements over the old system.  In the internal audit follow-up audit, checks would be made on arrangements for disaster recovery tests in 2011. 

Mortgage administration 2010/11

The committee noted that the council used to offer mortgages to tenants that wished to buy their council house.  Although the council no longer offered this service, there were still six active mortgage accounts.  Payments came through the council’s cash receipting system; this was audited regularly.  For historical reasons, this system was operated by a stand-alone computer rather than a networked system.  The committee did not consider this to be ideal and asked internal audit to investigate whether this was common practice. 

Travelling and subsistence expenses 2010/11

The committee noted that a new online expenses system had been introduced to process staff expenses claims.  This system had been developed in-house.  The committee acknowledged that this area was being reviewed again in the current year, but asked internal audit to undertake a spot check of receipts in the interim. 

RESOLVED: To request internal audit to:

(i)                 report in the ICT follow-up audit whether arrangements have been made for disaster recovery tests in 2011;

(ii)        investigate whether the use of stand-alone computer systems was common practice, rather than networked systems; and

(iii)       undertake a spot check of staff expenses receipts and report back to the next meeting.