Agenda item

Report of the Head of Internal Audit.

Considered:  The report of the Head of Internal Audit which informed Members of the progress made to date in delivering the 2024/25 internal audit programme of work, and the other related services provided to the Council by Veritau (information governance and counter fraud).  The report also highlighted any issues likely to impact on the programme of work throughout the remainder of the year.

Max Thomas, Head of Internal Audit, Veritau introduced the report and gave an overview of the salient points in the report. He reminded Members that the 2024/25 internal audit programme of work had been approved by the Committee at its meeting held on 18 June 2024. Daniel Clubb (Assistant Director – Corporate Fraud at Veritau) gave detail on Counter Fraud activities on behalf of the Council.

Annexed to the submitted report were:

Annex 1 – Internal Audit Progress Report – North Yorkshire Council;

Annex 2 – Counter Fraud Progress report

In response to question regarding the lack of business continuity plans in schools across the County Max Thomas explained that a significant number of schools were without plans, it was with CYPS to offer support in developing and testing of such business continuity plans. In response to another question Mr Thomas explained that there was no definitive reason for the rise in FoIs and Subject Access Requests, one possible cause was that requests were held back in the time immediately post vesting day. In response to a question about the Scarborough Water Park report, Mr Thomas explained that the draft report was with officers and would be ready for finalisation once officers had decided if they accepted the recommendations and how they would like to proceed. A Member highlighted page 29 of the report which stated that there had been no management response to the ICT governance audit, Mr Thomas advised that response had now been received and Gary Fielding confirmed he would looking into why there had not been a timely response to this audit.

Daniel Clubb, Assistant Director – Corporate Fraud at Veritau, introduced appendix 2 to the Committee and gave an overview of the salient points such as national counter fraud policy developments and an overview of counter fraud work at the Council. Since April there had been 164 counter fraud referrals, the team had completed 75 investigations and there were 89 investigations currently ongoing. To date, investigative work has helped the Council to achieve £178.9k in actual savings.

In response to a question regarding the next training session for Members Mr Clubb explained that there were details that could be made public as to act as deterrence but he would be unable to share any specific details about individual cases. In response to another question Mr Clubb advised that if an officer resigned in the middle of an investigation that would not necessarily result in the closing of the case. Veritau would continue their internal investigation and seek to recover any losses through legal means. It was finally explained that officers would not automatically be suspended during an investigation, this would be done on a case by case basis and would be primarily to protect the relevant service.

Resolved –

(1) Members noted the progress made in delivering the 2024/25 Internal Audit programme of work and the other assurance related services provided by Veritau.