Issue - meetings

To receive the Internal Audit Annual Opinion Reports 2018/19 for Dorset County Council, Dorset Councils Partnership, Purbeck District Council and East Dorset District Council.

The committee was presented with the Internal Audit Annual Opinion Reports for 2018/19 for the predecessor councils comprising Dorset County Council (DCC), Dorset Councils Partnership (DCP), Purbeck District Council (PDC) and East Dorset District Council (EDDC).  It was noted that South West Audit Partnership (SWAP) had delivered the Internal Audit services for both DCC and DCP and as such had provided the annual audit opinions contained within the reports for these predecessor councils.  The audit opinions for PDC and EDDC had been provided by legacy staff working for those Councils and had been included for reference and completeness purposes. They did not form part of SWAP’s internal audit annual opinion.

The overall internal audit assurance opinion for the year, for both the former Dorset County Council (DCC) and Dorset Councils Partnership (DCP) was ‘Reasonable’, in line with previous years. A caveat was provided to this, in that there were a number of key areas of Children’s Services that over the course of the year internal audit were unable to complete audit work, and therefore could only provide limited assurance over this area

The Assistant Director highlighted some key areas from the DCC annual opinion report, including details of two significant risks highlighted by internal audit within the 2018/19 year, as well as four recommendations that had been ‘risk accepted’ by management.

Members considered the issues arising from the report and a point was raised with regard to instances where there was a differing view between Internal Audit (SWAP) and External Audit (Deloitte) in relation to financial reviews at the former DCP .  In response it was noted that Internal Audit and External Audit would approach work with a different scope and that there were some issues that External Audit would cover and there would not be an expectation that these areas would be covered by Internal Audit.

In response to a question, it was noted that there may be a need for a future internal audit review of high cost placements.