Issue - meetings

REPORT OF THE SHARED INTERNAL AUDIT SERVICE (SIAS)

To consider the proposed plan for 2025/26.

RESOLVED: That Committee

(1)   Approved the proposed North Herts Council Internal Audit Plan for 2025/26.

(2)   Noted the SIAS Internal Audit Strategy and provide any comments prior to approval by the SIAS Board.

Audio Recording – 34 minutes 50 seconds

The SIAS The SIAS Head of Assurance presented the report entitled ‘SIAS Proposed Plan 2025-26’ and highlighted that:

·       The Internal Audit Strategy was shown in Appendix E and was for Members to comment on.

·       SIAS board would approve the strategy in June 2025 after it was reviewed by all partner audit Committees.

·       There was an error in the report and the client satisfaction target on page 46 of the report should be 90%, instead of 100%. This Paper was published before the SIAS board approved KPIs.

·       There was a group of General Internal Audits totalling 48 days. These potential projects are listed at page 53 of the report. These had not yet been formally confirmed, and the Committee would be informed when these were finalised.

The following Members asked questions:

·       Councillor Ruth Brown

·       Councillor Sean Nolan

·       Councillor Paul Ward

In response to questions, the SIAS Head of Assurance advised that:

·       The projects that were audited would be decided by doing a risk assessment in conjunction with Service Directors.

·       Changes to Professional Standards did not impact this report but some of the new Standards required more around root cause analysis.

·       Each progress update, the last one was 5 February 2025, had the implementation status of high priority SIAS recommendations and the inclusion of an audit in the Audit Plan was reflective of the interest this Committee took in the implementation status high priority recommendations. This was appreciated.

Councillor Paul Ward proposed and Councillor Vijaiya Poopalasingham and, following a vote, it was:

RESOLVED: That Committee

(1)   Approved the proposed North Herts Council Internal Audit Plan for 2025/26.

(2)   Noted the SIAS Internal Audit Strategy and provide any comments prior to approval by the SIAS Board.