Agenda item

This report summarises progress against the audit plan for 2015/16.

The Committee received a report summarising progress against the Audit Plan for 2015/16.

The following matters were considered:

a)            Audit Assignment: Car Park Income. The Committee noted that the Council’s Parking Manager and Head of Customer Services & Business Support were in attendance to answer any queries which Members had regarding this Audit report, and thanked the two Officers for their attendance. The Committee was informed that the Audit of Car Park Income had identified significant positive variances in the sums collected from parking machines, meaning that more money had been collected than was anticipated. The Internal Auditor informed the Committee that the Auditor’s concerns regarding this issue related to the lack of ability to accurately reconcile the income from the machines, as this could potentially mask negative or fraudulent variances.

Officers informed the Committee that this issue had occurred due to the parking machines not producing an audit ticket for all of the transactions which had taken place. The Committee was informed that these audit tickets had not been produced either due to the malfunction of the machine, or because they had run out of paper. This was a long-running historic issue which had been undetected until it was identified by the Audit. In response to the issue coming to light, Officers had identified a mechanism by which the content of historic transactions could be retrieved from the parking machines, and had used this to reconcile the variances. As a result, it had been possible to reconcile the income received, so that the largest variance was in fact under £10.

Officers also informed the Committee that processes for future car parking income collection  had been amended to record when an Audit ticket had not been produced by a machine. This enabled Officers to retrieve the relevant information from the system straight away, to enable reconciliation. It was noted that a 2-stage reconciliation process was in place, as income was reconciled against the parking machine audit tickets, and then again when banked.

The Committee expressed its thanks for the explanation provided by the Officers. The Committee also expressed that it was reassured by the actions taken to provide an accurate reconciliation of both past and future income from parking machines.

b)            Project Management and Contract Management Advisory Reviews. The Director of Finance and Resources informed the Committee that progress against the actions for the Project Management Advisory Review was proceeding well, and that a draft Project Management Methodology and Toolkit had been produced for use in all projects in future. The Committee was also informed that implementation of actions from the Contract Management review would be delayed until the Council’s current review of its procurement arrangements had been completed. The Committee requested that an update on the actions from these two Advisory Reviews be presented to a future meeting.

c)            Use of Fuel Cards. Following a question from a Committee Member, it was noted that the Council operated a Fuel Card system for its transport fleet. An audit review of this had previously been considered by the Committee, following the identification of fraudulent activity by external parties. The Council maintained stringent controls on its fuel card system.

Following consideration, the Committee:

(1)          Noted the Internal Audit Progress report for 2015/16 and requested that an update on progress against actions within the Project Management and Contract Management Advisory Reviews be presented to its meeting in February 2017.