Agenda and minutes
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Contact: Corporate and Community Services 01271 388253
Note: If you wish to attend the meeting please email memberservices@northdevon.gov.uk by noon Friday 5th June 2020. This will be a virtual meeting. To be conducted in line with The Local Authorities and Police and Crime Panels (Coronavirus) (Flexibility of Local Authority and Police and Crime Panel Meetings) (England and Wales) Regulations 2020
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VIRTUAL MEETINGS PROCEDURE - BRIEFING AND ETIQUETTE. Minutes: The Corporate and Community Services Officer read the virtual meeting procedure notes. |
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Apologies for absence Minutes: Apologies for absence were received from Mr Davies, External Auditor representing Grant Thornton. |
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To approve as a correct record the minutes of the meeting held on 10th March 2020. Minutes:
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Declarations of Interests. (Please complete the form provided at the meeting or telephone Corporate and Community Services to prepare a form for your signature before the meeting. Interests must be re-declared when the item is called, and Councillors must leave the room if necessary.) Minutes: There were no declarations of interest made. |
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Internal Audit Progress Report Report by Devon Audit Partnership, (attached). Minutes: The Committee considered a report by the Devon Audit Partnership (circulated previously) regarding the Internal Audit Report.
Mr Hutchins introduced himself and gave a short summary of the Internal Audit Progress Report, (circulated previously), to the Committee as follows:
Mr Hutchins then handed over to his deputy Mr David Curnow who updated the Committee as follows:
In response to a question on whether North Devon Council had noticed any fraud alerts around grants being processed, the Head of Resources advised that the implementation of an online application process which integrated background checks and validated to back office systems as part of the application process meant fraudulent activity would be mitigated against and that he was not aware of any such activity. The situation was monitored regularly by the team and any areas of concern would be raised with internal audit but none had come to light at present.
In response to a question about the three lines of defence and whether North Devon Council had been engaged with internal audit on what would now take priority Mr Curnow advised that those priorities identified had already been built into the plan.
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Internal Audit Annual Report 2019/20 Report from Mazars, (attached). Minutes: The Committee considered a report by Mazars (circulated previously) regarding the Internal Audit report for 2019/20.
Mr Graeme Clarke, representing Mazars, presented the internal Audit Annual Report 2019/20 (circulated previously), to the Committee as follows:
The Chair raised the question of why the business continuity plan was showing as red on page 26 of the report to which the Head of Resources explained that this reference was to an issue rolled forward from 2018/19 where the old business continuity plan was found to be out of date. A full briefing on this matter had been subsequently presented to Members at a previous Governance Committee meeting. The new Emergency Planning Officer, had begun work last autumn (2019), updating business continuity plans.
The Chief Executive added that just prior to the lockdown, due to Covid-19, an exercise had been run looking at how we would cope with staff shortages in light of such an event. North Devon Council’s services had been maintained other than the planned interruption to services such as bulky waste collections, the museum and pannier market were closed and the car parking charges had been waived.
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External Audit Progress Report and Sector Update Report by Grant Thornton, (attached). Additional documents: Minutes: The Committee considered a report by Grant Thornton (circulated previously) regarding the External Audit Progress Report and Sector Update.
Mr Peter Barber, representing Grant Thornton, updated the Committee with the following:
The Chair asked if a correction to the wording on Page 43 of the report was needed and Mr Barber confirmed the wording should be amended with the addition of the word ‘not’ so the sentence under the conclusions and recommendations for early substantive testing should read as follows:
“Our testing to date has not identified any issues that we need to bring to your attention.”
Mr Barber then updated the Committee on the Sector update of the External Audit Progress report as follows:
In response to a question on the latest situation regarding grants from Central Government being made available to local authorities and if this was a concern for auditors. Mr Barber advised that he was not aware of any extra funding being imminently available. His advice would be to continue assessing the situation and the impact of levels of funding and model the effects on budget. Financial planning would become even more prudent with the best course of action to be decided on as a result of this planning.
In response to a question on what North Devon Council were doing to obtain additional funding, the Head of Resources replied with the following:
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Audit Recommendation Tracker Report by the Chief Executive, (attached). Minutes: The Head of Resources addressed the committee in relation to the Audit Recommendation Tracker (circulated previously), with the following:
In response to a question on the requested extension date of June 2022 for testing the strategy in relation to business continuity being correct and whether it should be completed earlier the Head of Resources gave the following response:
In response to whether there was a need for a completion date on an area that ... view the full minutes text for item 80. |
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Governance Work Programme 2020 - 21 To consider the work programme (attached). Minutes: The Head of Resources updated the Committee on the Governance Committee’s work programme 2020-21 (circulated previously), with the following proposed changes:
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