The Chief Internal Auditor, Mark Niblock, introduced his report that identified the Internal Audit Plan of work for 2018/19. The report informed that work scheduled for completion had been included to reflect the findings of the extensive planning exercise recently undertaken to ensure relevance of risks previously identified, in addition to any risks to the organisation that had emerged since the original exercise, or that were likely to emerge in the near future. The Audit and Risk management Committee were apprised that the subject would continue to be the basis of ongoing regular report in the future.

The Chief Internal Auditor provided further assurance of the resources allocated to deliver anti-fraud work and advised that internal audit was also contributing to the  promotion of appropriate ethics and values within the Council through targeted audit work.

Members questioned the Chief Internal Auditor on a number of matters as detailed in his report, namely Health and Care integration, transformational change, contract management, and regeneration projects e.g. Wirral Growth Company, and asked how these projects would be tracked to ensure benefits were realised. The Chief Internal Auditor informed that, in addition to earlier reports, these topics would continue to be monitored and areas of compliance, calculation of financial savings and procurement processes would continue to be evaluated as part of ongoing work actioned by Internal Audit. A Member requested that the outcome of this work be regularly presented to the Audit and Risk Management Committee. The Chair confirmed that elements of the work were already underway and supported the request stating that findings be reported at the appropriate time.

Resolved – that the work proposed in the Internal Audit Plan be endorsed.