The council’s internal auditor will submit a report.

Devon Audit Partnership presented the Internal Audit Annual Report for 2012-13.   The report set out the position as at the end of 31 March 2013.  It was also reported that -

a.     Devon Audit Partnership were providing information to the Police as part of their investigation at St Boniface. The court case was scheduled to take place in December 2013;

b.    antifraud work involving individual cases were investigated and PCC were taking action to address any issues that arise.  Plymouth City Council submit data to the  National Fraud Initiative along with other councils, this data is then cross matched with information supplied by other organisations to identify any potential cases of fraud and to ensure these are fully investigated;

c.     internal audit’s performance was very good but they were aware that some draft and final reports were not issued to the customer within the agreed timescales.  They were addressing this issue and pointed out that customer satisfaction remains very high.

In response to questions raised, it was reported that -

d.    there would be press coverage when the St Boniface case comes to court in December.  This could have a negative impact for the council and arrangements were in place to limit the extent of this;

e.    in relation to targets for draft reports they were working on a target of 20 days; in some instances the deadline date was missed (i.e. report issued in 21 days) but action was being taken to ensure the target was met.  When work was completed the client would receive a verbal update followed by a full report;

f.      in response to a question regarding the percentage of staff working on temporary contracts across the council, officers from Devon audit Partnership were not in possession of the information.   This information could be made available at a future meeting if required.;

g.     the internal audit review of housing benefit for 2012/13 had confirmed that the process checking was now robust.

Agreed that –

1.         the Internal Audit Annual Report 2012 – 13 is noted.

2.         the Audit committee endorse the adequacy and effectiveness of Plymouth’s internal audit for the year ended 31 March 2013.