To receive a report from the Internal Audit Manager, Assurance Lincolnshire.

The Internal Audit Manager, Assurance Lincolnshire presented Members with the Internal Audit Annual Report 2022/23, pages 27 to 50 of the Agenda refer.  The purpose of the report was to give the annual opinion and outcome of the internal work undertaken during the year.

The purpose of the report was to meet the Head of Internal Audit annual reporting requirements as set out in the Public Sector Internal Audit Standards (PSIAS) and the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2020.

Further information was contained within the introduction, detailed at page 30 of the Agenda.

It was highlighted to Members that based on the work undertaken and information from other sources of assurance, that the opinion on the adequacy and effectiveness of the Council’s arrangements for the following areas were:

Governance – Performing adequately

Risk – Performing well

Internal Control – Performing adequately

Financial Control – Improvement needed

The details relating to these opinions were detailed within the report, pages 32 to 40 of the Agenda refer.

Comments and questions were responded to as follows:

A Member raised a concern regarding delivery of reports by the finance team function and whether there was sufficient resource to deliver this.  The S151 Officer responded that reports were late due to the expertise not being in place to turn them around quickly enough and also the implementation of a new finance system.  Members were advised that plans were in place to address the problems, however the main issue was recruiting people with local government experience into the finance roles as it could take a long time to train someone from the private sector in local authority accounting.  It was confirmed that there was another key person due to start with PSPSL shortly and resources were in place.

A Member queried how the Invest East Lindsey (IEL) issues were going to be addressed, following which the S151 Officer advised that there was an audit report coming to the next Committee meeting with regards to lessons learnt concerning the creation of and early operation of Invest East Lindsey. 

A Member commented that it was agreed by Overview Committee to have Invest East Lindsey (IEL) as part of its scrutiny and considered that it should be brought forward as an early topic. 

A Member raised a serious concern with the current situation, in particular to Kingfisher Caravan Park (KCP) and stressed that this should take priority. The S151 Officer explained that  it was for scrutiny to look at  and come to its own conclusions and recommendations.

With regards to IEL, a Member queried how the Council’s audit overall was affected after the external auditors had issued its qualified opinion.  The S151 Officer advised that the Council’s accounts would be issued with an opinion and then a set of group accounts would be created and it was these which would be affected. 

A Member referred to the Limited Assurance that was issued to the Section 106 Audit, page 36 of the Agenda refers.  The Internal Audit Manager advised that there would need to be a follow-up review in six months, following which Committee would be given an oversight on which actions had been implemented.

A Member referred to the Performance on Key Indicators, page 45 of the report refers and queried what percentage of recommendations had now been implemented.  The Internal Audit Manager agreed to report back to the Committee with the figures.

No further comments or questions were received.

Following which, it was

RESOLVED:

That the Internal Audit Annual Report 2022/23 be noted.