Issue - meetings

REPORT OF THE SHARED INTERNAL AUDIT SERVICE

To receive the 2021-22 Annual Report of the Shared Internal Audit Service

RESOLVED: That the Committee note the SIAS Annual Report 2021/22

Audio recording – 33:36

Chris Wood, Shared Internal Audit Service, presented the SIAS Annual Report 2021/22 and highlighted points including:

• This reports looks back at the service and activities during 21/22
• It gives Members a chance to receive information beyond the North Herts internal audit plan
• Some of this reports primary readers have been candidates for recruitment. They often find this helpful to learn more about the service

The following Members and Independent Persons asked questions:

• Councillor Terry Hone
• John Cannon

In response to these questions, Chris Wood advised:

• There was the same level of assurance in this audit despite the impacts of covid-19. It was a different way of working. For part of the year, we were able to audit in person, in the second half of 21/22 where it was necessary. Overall, its been quite beneficial as there is less travel and there is still a good level of interaction and support with staff. There has been a lot of information which is easier to share digitally through secure portals. The only part that was more difficult was looking at the Council systems themselves, however this hasn’t affected the first half of 21/22 and were able to do that in person in the second half. Overall, its been helpful in learning about how we can audit and how we can be more effective and we have continued the way we have been working into 22/23.
• Many questions asked by John Cannon will be answered within the next report
• There is 15% plan days delivered. We are slightly behind and would have liked to have issued draft reports for things like the careline operations audit and be further on with the compliance contract audit. We have carried a few vacancies through the first part of the year and assigned a number of audits to our external delivery partners and this takes some start-up time but we have good traction on audits.
• Cyber risk is high risk to a number of organisations and is constantly evolving.

Ian Couper also responded questions:

·         The audit of the compliance contract relates to property compliance. We have contracts around gas safety of our buildings, electrical safety, and other property checks. We’ve been given notice to terminate this contract so this audit is around the arrangements we are putting in place for the new contract from February next year.

·         The cyber security audit doesn’t fit in the categories like other audits. We are doing three IT audits a year which have their own category. They could be medium or high priority.

It was:

RESOLVED: That the Committee note the SIAS Annual Report 2021/22