Decision details

The Committee considered a report setting out further information to support the Internal Audit Annual Report considered by the Committee at its meeting on 30 April 2018.

The report presented updates on outstanding work from 2017/18 and also included a section on the work of Deloitte LLP as the internal auditors of Local Pensions Partnership Ltd which administers the Lancashire County Pension Fund. With Deloitte's agreement, their audit conclusions were being reported to the Committee and the progress report included a short response from the management of Local Pensions Partnership Ltd in response to queries raised at the Committee's last meeting.

The progress report also referred to the action plans agreed with service managers and the discussions developing around responses to the risks identified through the internal audit process. The Committee was assured that this issue would be monitored and, ultimately, any issues would be resolved at a Corporate Management Team level. It was also reported that the Cabinet Committee on Performance Improvement would now be considering reports on a new performance indicator, the 'proportion of the actions identified through audit work that were completed within the agreed timescale in the period'. This was deemed to be good management practice, strengthening internal accountability and controls and holding managers to account on the implementation of agreed actions.

Reference was made to the limited assurance given to decision making under delegated powers. It was reported that there was some inconsistency in the recording of such decisions and that discussions were taking place between officers in Internal Audit and Legal and Democratic Services to address this.

The Chair raised the issue of overpayment of salaries which had been previously considered by the Committee. Whilst the BTLS processes had received full assurance, the less effective controls to ensure the data was input in a timely and accurate way by service managers had resulted in limited assurance. The Committee was assured that this would be monitored and improvements were expected to be made.

Resolved: - That the report, now presented, be noted.