The Head of Internal Audit introduced the report as set out in the agenda papers.  She referred to the Head of Internal Audit’s opinion as set out on page nine of the report “It is my opinion that a sound assurance can be placed upon the systems in place that ensure adequate and effective risk management, control and governance processes exist to manage the achievement of the Council’s objectives.”  She added that it was important to note that this opinion fed into the Statement for 2024/25, which supported the Annual Governance Statement of Accounts wand were issued to the external auditors.

The Head of Internal Audit summarised: the basis of forming the Annual Audit Opinion; Audits with a Formal Opinion and Issued report; Additional Sources of Assurances and Consultancy Work; and following up of actions.

The Chair invited Members to ask questions, and points raised included:

·         Compared to other Local Authorities there had been few cases of fraud at SBC, how had the Council achieved this?;

·         concerned that ‘Commercial Property Income’ had a weak assurance as it was a key part of the Council’s budget;

·         did the Council monitor quality control for building control, or was it monitored nationally?;

·         the checks around the quality of energy consumption needed to be ‘tightened-up’;

·         aware of some poor level of building control inspections recently, and need to ensure that the Council was not responsible;

·         pleased that there were no overdue actions;

·         South Thames Gateway (STG) provided the best in building control services;

·         asked that the wording be tightened up to ensure that private companies did engage with STG;

·         referred to the server outage recently due to the hot weather and asked that some resilience be put in place to ensure ICT had it covered.

In response, the Head of Internal Audit said that she was asked annually as part of the external auditor’s Value for Money conclusion, how she considered the Council managed fraud and what processes and procedures were in place.   The Director of Resources outlined some of the processes the Council had in place to minimise the risk.  The Head of Internal Audit reported that a draft report on, Commercial Property Income, would be considered at the meeting in October 2025.   

The Director of Resources explained that building control was a local authority function provided by STG Building Control which was a partnership between SBC, Canterbury City Council, Gravesham Borough Council, and Medway Council.  STG were responsible for building control quality and any building deemed structurally dangerous, and worked to national standards.  The Head of Internal Audit added that building control was also regulated by Local Authority Building Control, The Building Safety Regulators and Health and Safety Executive (HSE). 

In response to a query about the quality of energy consumption on new builds, the Head of Audit agreed to liaise with STG and report back to the Member.  A Member also offered to provide the Members with some information outside of the meeting.

The Director of Resources reported that the recent IT outage was not an audit issue but a risk and emergency planning recovery issue.  A briefing note would be sent to all Members in due course. 

The Chair thanked officers for the positive report.

Councillor Angela Harrison proposed the recommendations, which were seconded by Councillor Derek Carnell.

Resolved:

(1)   That the Head of Internal Audit Partnership Annual Audit opinion for 2024/25 be noted.

(2)   That the work underlying the opinion and the Head of Internal Audit Partnership’s assurance of its independent completion in conformance with proper standards be noted.