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

Matthew Waller, Internal Audit Manager presented Members with the Internal Audit Annual Report & Opinion 2023/24, pages 37 to 50 of the Agenda refer.  The purpose of the report was to give the annual opinion and outcome of the internal audit work undertaken during the year to inform the Annual Governance Statement, concluding on the adequacy and effectiveness of the Council’s governance, risk and control framework.

A summary of the findings of the assurance reviews throughout 2023/24 was included at Appendix A and were categorised under the headings of substantial, adequate, limited and no assurance, page 50 of the Agenda refers.

The Internal Audit Manager assured Members that the Council was in a good position to carry out internal audit work for 2024/2025 as last year’s performance statistics were positive and that the achievement of targets and KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) had resulted in almost the entire audit plan being delivered by the end of March 2024.

Members were invited to put their comments and questions forward.

·         Members spoke in support of the report and praised the Audit and Governance Committee for their contribution to promoting good governance and their commitment to undertake training to further understanding.

·         A Member queried the aspirations of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) and Executive Board to obtain a level of substantial assurance of more than 50% across all areas that were reviewed and further queried whether a KPI had been assigned to achieve better.  In response, the Section 151 Officer assured Members that aspirations were held to level up auditing across the board and that the finance team aspired to balance effort with reward to ensure a very good to excellent level of control.  The Section 151 Officer spoke in support of the work undertaken by the finance team and confirmed that time and effort was being taken to improve all areas and stressed that it was sometimes necessary to look beyond the figures at what added value.

·         A Member queried the process for determining the client feedback rating and the presence of creative challenges which may exist between the Council and the Internal Auditor.  In response, the Internal Audit Manager explained to Members that at the end of every assignment a feedback form was provided with ratings from poor to excellent and that comments from managers were fed into post audit internal reviews for the benefit of training and continuous improvement.  The Internal Audit Manager further advised Members that a new questionnaire was being introduced in 2025 and that different feedback may be observed in future.

The Section 151 Officer assured Members that creative challenges particularly over the past 18 months had been proactively managed and that relationships of respect for professional positions were always maintained.

The Internal Audit Manager supported that tension in the relationship between the Council and Auditors was seen as a positive, and further assured Members that no complacency existed in how audits were carried out or received. 

The Chairman thanked the Internal Audit Manager for his informative report.

No further comments or questions were received.

Following which, it was

RESOLVED:

That the Internal Audit Annual Report 2023/24 be noted.