Agenda item

The Chief Internal Auditor presented the report to the Committee.

The report identified that the Internal Audit Section was making progress against the 2022/23 audit plan and internal performance indicators.

Site visits to establishments have resumed.

The Internal Audit Plan was based on 1073 audit days.

The follow up audit of the Passenger Transport Unit (PTU) Taxi Contracts resulted in

a second consecutive Unsatisfactory audit opinion.

Paragraph 12 within the report highlighted the performance of the staff for Quarter 2, 2022/23.  This was also detailed in Appendix A, along with the audit opinions.

Comments of committee:

Dr Barry referred to paragraph eight was there lack of corporation between service managers and staff that prevented completion of the previous year’s audit. In addition, only 80% were reasonable and were there any themes coming from these audit reports that leadership would need to be addressing. The Chief Internal Auditor advised that in relation to the first question, that was a general statement from the audit team to make the committee  aware that it was not straightforward and needed to be escalated to the Chief Internal Auditor or the Head of Service.  Secondly it would be satisfactory to see ‘all good’ outcomes. The Audit team cycle audits at around eight or nine years from audit to audit. But would take on board comments.

D Reed referred to financial training in paragraph 20, was this mandatory training. The Chief Internal Auditor would like to think it was mandatory and encouraged people to attend. Self Nomination meant that staff would to this to attend training.  This was not effectively monitored but could be developed further.  Common themes were picked up and feedback to HR. The Audit team also makes sure that staff comply with policy, but most training is monitored at local level

The Corporate Director for Transformation and Corporate referred to mandatory training and HR had invested in meta compliance training.  This was new and being rolled out to staff.

The Chair suggested that mandatory training should be monitored as it was important to receive training as mentioned at the previous meeting.

The Chair mentioned that in relation to the PTU, no critical issues were identified, one critical issue was that taxi was operating for the council using unlicensed drivers transporting  vulnerable young people.  What therefore was the threshold for being critical, considering the background of this report.  The Chief Internal Auditor advised that critical, significant and moderate was noted in the report and was subjective, based on evidence at time of the audit, if identified as a strength, the auditor would determine whether it was critical or significant or moderate weakness, it then goes through a management process.  There was  an understanding of what it meant across the authority and the impact it could have corporately. 

The Chair was concerned that if an unlicensed taxi driver picked up a vulnerable person with and if something happened, that made it to the press it would be a critical issue for the council. Therefore the committee needed to call in the Strategic Director and Head of Service as it was an appalling way of operating a service.

Dr Barry echoed the comments of the Chair and considered that there were simple administrative tasks that were not being completed.

Councillor Mogford also agreed with the above comments and asked would the council be liable for even minor incidents.  Was there a bias undertaking an internal audit.  The Chief Internal Auditor assured the councillor that there was no bias during these audit investigations and that they understood the seriousness of the situation.

The Chair asked what would be the view of Education and Social Services. The Strategic Director for Transformation and Corporate would invite a written statement from those Heads of Service from an operational point of view and consider what action should be taken from their stand point.

Councillor Horton asked if the taxi company could also be called in to the Committee.  The Chief Internal Audit advised that it would be one and the same person.

he Chair reiterated that it was very important that the Director and Head of Service attend the next committee meeting to answer these questions. 

The Chair also asked if the contracted taxi company using unlicensed drivers was still being used by the council or had they been suspended, those were the points that needed to be made to ensure that PTU was safe and secure.

Councillor Mogford should there be another channel or process before this information was discussed at Governance and Audit Committee.  Was this also brought to the attention to the Licensing Committee, therefore was the process robust enough.  

The Strategic Director clarified that the role of the Governance and Audit Committee was to provide assurance that the Head of Service was delivering their service.  This was the second unsatisfactory audit outcome, hence being brought to this committee. The role of the committee was to challenge the pace, activity and actions to ensure the safeguards were in place. This was also being looked via other areas but the Audit report highlighted that this was taking place and therefore being brought to committee. in the Audit report.  In response to Councillor Mogford, the documentation regarding this would be in the operational service plan and this is performance reviewed on a regular basis.  The Audit report was the document process that highlighted what was going wrong with the system. An independent  internal audit was undertaken and it was now being discussed in a public meeting. This was an example of how we should operate and how the process was working properly.

For point of clarification, Dr Barry asked if the Strategic Director would be aware of what was happening within the service area in light of an audit report.  The Chief Internal Auditor would raise this at draft report level with the service manager, then the Head of Service and Strategic Director.  All reports were evidence based, should they be challenged by service manager.

Councillor Cocks commented that it did show that the system worked, the Audit team had picked this up and it was raised at committee.

The Chair asked if very little had changed as an outcome the next committee could a recommendation be made to refer the matter to Scrutiny Committee. 

Resolved:

That the Governance and Audit Committee

1.         Resolved to call in the Strategic Director for Environment and Sustainability and Head of City Services in relation to the second unsatisfactory audit opinion for the Passenger Transport Unit (PTU) Taxi Contracts

2.         To aid the Committee’s assessment of the level of risk associated with this audit opinion, request a written submission from the Strategic Director for Social Services and Chief Education Officer on the service impacts as a result of the issues raised within the audit report

3.         Following the call in at the next meeting, consider referring any performance issues to the relevant Scrutiny Committee