The meeting will include reports on the state of the council's health and safety management, the status of Priority 1 internal audit actions, an update on the 2023/24 IT Audit Report, a report on the risks associated with the Improvement and Transformation Programme, and a progress update on actions in response to the Interim Auditor’s Annual Report for 2022/23.

Improvement and Transformation Programme - Risks

The Improvement and Transformation Programme Risk Update - December 2024 document contains an update on the risks associated with the programme, and how they are being managed. In particular, a new risk has been recorded, that the ongoing consultation process with Trade Unions will be extended beyond its previously scheduled end date of the 14th of December 2024. This could result in the required pay bill savings not being made by the end of March 2025, and if the programme is delivered at a faster pace, it may result in poor quality outputs.

The report says that:

Condensed timeline and delays in offering appointments could mean those leaving will have less time to knowledge transfer with others before they leave the Council.

The report notes that other significant risks are that the financial savings made by the programme will be less than expected, that the Council will not have enough money to pay for planned redundancies, that the council is struggling to recruit for hard-to-fill specialist roles, and that payroll costs are increasing despite attempts to reduce them.

Health and Safety Governance

The committee will review the Health and Safety Governance Internal Audit Report.

This report contains an update on work being done to address the recommendations of the Health and Safety Culture Final Report prepared by SWAP Internal Audit Services¹ earlier in the year.

It details work that has been undertaken on embedding new governance structures, reporting on health and safety performance, and ensuring that employees have received the required health and safety training.

A section of the report details why the Council decided not to implement table logging in SAP² because it would have caused performance issues, and explains that:

This was originally raised by Grant Thornton in 2018 and the answer has been the same every year.

The report also states that work on a new health and safety strategy for the Council will be delayed, and that:

The H&S Service believe July 2025 would be a more achievable timescale for delivering a strategy, noting this will also be a more stable time for the organisation to adopt the strategy.

Adults and Children's Services - Review of Priority 1 Internal Audit Actions

This report will review the Adults & Children's Services - Review of Priority 1 Internal Audit Management Actions.

The report explains that:

SWAP Audit provides the Internal Audit function, checking the adequacy of controls and procedures across the whole range of Council services. At the start of each financial year an audit plan is approved by the Audit Committee which identifies the areas of highest potential organisational and operational risk within the Council.

It contains details of the current status of priority 1 internal audit actions in Children's and Adults Services. In particular it says that the work done on improving the management of Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) has been delayed due to an internal restructuring that is currently underway. It states that a new Dynamic Purchasing System for all supported accommodation placements has been set up, and that:

Unit cost for placements that were off-contract is now halved.

Interim Auditor's Annual Report

The committee will receive an update on the Interim Auditor's Annual Report 2022-23 - Action Plan Progress Update.

The report notes that:

The external auditors made no statutory recommendations to the Council because of their findings, but they did make seven Key Recommendations and six Improvement Recommendations.

It contains details of the actions that are being taken to implement the recommendations made by Grant Thornton in the Interim Auditor's Annual Report for 2022/23. It states that of the 41 actions that were defined, 29 have now been completed.

Update on the 2023-24 IT Audit

The committee will receive an Update on the 2023-24 IT Audit Report.

It contains an update on the actions being taken to address the recommendations of the most recent IT Audit. It states that a decision was made to not enable table logging in SAP because:

turning it on for all tables would cause performance issues.

The report details the work that has been done on improving Active Directory security, and it notes that:

the main security group in Active Directory (i.e., Domain Admins) is restricted to a limited scope of users who can promote themselves to this group.