Mark P Niblock Chief Internal Auditor presented his report which he was required to present annually and which provided assurance about the controls. It had been a challenging year with pandemic related activities.

In answer to Members’ questions, it was established that:

·  Audit staffing had been static to date

·  Hybrid working had worked well but was being closely monitored

·  The audit of Section 106 agreements had shown risks around the collection of monies and record keeping and there were actions to improve the process from start to finish. Follow up audit work to evaluate progress on actions had been scheduled for later in the year and the outcomes from this would be reported to Committee

·  There was staff training around the ‘no PO no pay’ policy as well as improved controls and there had been a marked improvement in the figures

·  data centre security had been an issue as the data collection centre was used by non-Council staff but most data had now been moved to a specialist data warehouse.

Resolved –

That the report be noted.