Agenda item
Internal Audit - Progress Report
Report of: The Internal Auditor, BDO
Purpose of the report: This report is intended to inform the Audit and Governance Committee of progress made against the 2024/2025 internal audit plan.
Recommendations: To note and discuss the report.
Minutes:
Gurpreet Dulay, an Internal Auditor from BDO, provided the Committee with a verbal update on the progress report, summarising the accounts payable report. He explained that they were presenting the accounts payable report to the Committee as part of the progress report and noted that a few reviews were in the final stages of completion. He highlighted that the first of these reviews, on risk management, was initially intended for discussion with the Committee. This review had already been issued to management, and the Council was in the process of appointing a new risk manager, who would assume responsibility for the noted actions. Another review, initially planned for the dynamic purchasing system, had been removed from the agenda and replaced with a review of fire safety arrangements. He also informed the Committee that the government had set a new implementation date of February 24, 2025, for the Procurement Act, moving it from the original October timeline.
Regarding the accounts payable audit, the Internal Auditor described it as having a moderate rating on both design and effectiveness. He reported three medium-level issues and a few lower-priority issues within the audit findings. He noted that Oxford City Council uses a system called Agresso to manage purchase orders and invoices, and that the Council’s constitution had been updated in November 2023. This update included revisions to the Council’s financial regulations and policies, outlining procedures for approvals.
The Internal Auditor outlined four key areas for improvement:
- Retrospective purchase orders: The Internal Auditor is working with his team on extended follow-up testing to address issues with orders being raised after the fact.
- Management reporting: in an earlier version of Agresso, KPI reporting automatically provided the Council with key information, but this functionality is no longer available. Management is now working to reestablish similar reporting capabilities.
- New supplier steps: in a few cases, the rationale for classifying certain suppliers as high risk was not documented, though it should have been.
- System reconciliation: there are ongoing challenges in reconciling the Agresso system with the income system.
Philip McGaskil, Revenues Service Delivery Manager, added that he and the team leader had reviewed their practices and approach. He noted that BDO’s findings were largely in line with his own assessment. He clarified that several recommendations BDO proposed have already been implemented, with plans to address the remaining ones by month-end. He acknowledged that more complex recommendations, particularly around reporting and KPIs, would require IT support. A number of reviews were targeted for completion by the end of October, though some may extend to January. However, he expressed optimism that increased focus on KPIs could produce results sooner than January.
When Councillor Fry asked if everything would be ready by the January meeting, the Revenues Service Delivery Manager confirmed that this was his goal.
Councillor Fry further inquired if he was confident about implementing these changes and asked if they would be in place by the new year. The Head of Financial Services acknowledged a slight delay but aimed to have them in place by December 2. The Revenue Service Delivery Manager added that he was confident about meeting this timeline.
The Committee noted the report.
Supporting documents: