To consider the
report
Decision:
To accept the information
Minutes:
Submitted - the
report of the Audit Manager, expressing Internal Audit's opinion of the general
management environment within the Authority during 2020/21 providing the said
annual internal audit opinion to the Authority. It was noted that
assurance can never be absolute, and the most that the internal audit service
can provide to the Council was a reasonable assurance that there were no major
weaknesses in the whole system of internal control.
It was reported that the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic had
a significant impact on the authority as a whole and on the work of Internal
Audit. It was stated that Internal Audit
was not able to undertake its work during the first quarter of the year and at
the request of the Head of Finance, officers from the service
were redeployed to assist and support the Council by verifying and processing
Welsh Government Grants for Businesses administered by the Revenue
Service. The total number of days for
this work was 146 days. Furthermore, Internal Audit staff also assisted the
Test, Trace and Protect Service, a service launched by the Welsh Government and
a total of 120 days were spent on this work.
A revised work
programme for Internal Audit for the financial year 2020/2021 was presented to the Audit and Governance Committee on 30
July 2020. The annual internal audit
plan was much more fluid than normal because of the impact of the pandemic on
the organisation. New audit priorities were identified to cover the new risks and changes from the
impact of Covid-19. The audits of the revised plan were completed during a
challenging period with the focus of the audits being on the arrangements as a result of the pandemic and statutory audits such as
grants. A low number of audits were undertaken during
2020/2021 compared to the previous years and this was due to the unprecedented
and abnormal circumstances. This was considered to be an
exception this year and evidence provided by external regulators was used to
support the opinion for the year.
·
Overall, good internal control had
been found within each of the Council’s audited services.
·
All the Council's departments had built upon
previous work, and continued to develop their risk management systems. A report was submitted by
the Assistant Head of Finance to the Audit and Governance Committee on
30 November 2020 to update the Committee on developments in risk management
arrangements, the next steps for implementation, and to consider whether the
response addressed the matters raised in the Auditor's letter.
·
23 governance risks had been identified in the Annual Governance Statement
and are continually assessed by the Governance Arrangement Group.
·
Where significant internal control weaknesses were found, these matters were resolved by the Council’s
officers, and considered by the Control Improvement Working Group.
·
The Authority had received a number of reports from
regulators during 2020/2021:
On
the basis of Internal Audit work completed during 2020/2021, it was considered that
Gwynedd Council's framework of internal control during the 2020/2021 financial
year operates to a level which provides reasonable assurance on the overall
adequacy and effectiveness of the Authority's framework of governance, risk
management and internal control.
A
total of 23 pieces of work were contained in the final revised audit plan for
2020/2021. 19
assignments were completed by 31 March 2021, representing 82.61% of the
plan. Of the relevant reports of the
2020/2021 audit plan that received a level of assurance, 100% had received a
'Satisfactory' or 'High' assurance level.
Since 1 April
2021, there were 7 full-time members in the Internal
Audit Team and one Temporary Senior Auditor.
It was noted that monies had been earmarked to
fund this additional resource for the Service to implement audits when the
crisis restrictions are relaxed, as reported by the Head of Finance to the
Audit and Governance Committee on 11 February 2021.
Appreciation
of the Audit Manager's work was expressed.
RESOLVED
To accept the information
Supporting documents: