The Chief Internal Auditor, Mark Niblock, introduced his report which identified and evaluated the performance of the Internal Audit Section and included seven items of note arising from the actual work undertaken during the period 1 November to 31 December 2017. The items of note were:

·  Children’s Carer Payments

·  Contract Extensions – Compliance with Procurement Rules

·  Access Transformation Project

·  Quality Assurance Improvement Programme

·  Floral Pavilion

·  Ethical Framework

·  Merseyside Pension Fund – Governance

With regard to Children’s Carer Payments, Mark Niblock reported that the matter had been escalated to the Senior Leadership Team and a report to the next meeting would detail what measures were being taken to address the issue.

In respect of  Contract Extensions and Compliance with Procurement Rules, Mark Niblock, responding to a Member’s comment, stated that a report would be brought to the next meeting on the process by which the Highways Maintenance contract was to be brought back in-house.

The Assistant Chief Executive commented that the matter was not entirely through Council choice as the contractor also had a view too but it would be something on which a case study could be undertaken and provide a degree of assurance on how the decision was reached with an update to the Committee in March.

The Interim Assistant Director: Law and Governance also commented that this was an ongoing process and there would be some information subject to commercial sensitivity.

In response to further comments from Members, officers’ comments included:

·  The review of the risk and governance arrangements for the Access Wirral Transformation Project was being undertaken in phases.

·  More details would be provided in future reports in respect of the performance indicators with the actual figures provided and not just the percentage achieved.

Resolved – That the report be noted.