The Chief Internal Auditor reported on a summary of the work undertaken by Internal Audit in relation to the school based audits conducted in the 2015/16 audit year. 

She informed the Committee that in order to ensure that audit days available are used in the most effective way, changes were made to the 2015/16 school audit programme which allowed for more in depth coverage of high risk areas rather than undertaking cyclical school visits.  In order to achieve this, all schools were issued with a Control Risk Self-Assessment questionnaire (CRSA) which enabled the schools to self-evaluate the controls they have in place to mitigate risk. In addition an Assurance Statement, which provides assurance that the Head Teacher and Chair of Governors are ensuring that the school has sufficient internal controls in place was requested from all schools. 

The Chief Internal Auditor reported that 60 CRSA's were issued to schools including the Pupil Referral Unit, of which 59 were returned.  The completed CRSAs were evaluated by Internal Audit and any issues addressed with the individual school.  She stated that there were no common trends or significant issues identified and the overall control environment was evaluated as good.

The Chief Internal Auditor also reported that Assurance Statements were issued, for Head teachers and Chairs of Governors to acknowledge their responsibility in maintaining and operating the school in accordance with the Council's procedures and practices that uphold the internal control and assurance framework, and the Fair Funding Scheme for Schools.  She stated that only 30 Head teachers and 18 Chairs of Governors completed the Assurance Statement and it was found that some did not understand the form or its significance.  In order to improve the response rate for 2016/17, this information and its declaration together with an explanatory forward has been included on the CRSA questionnaire which should make the process more efficient.

The Chief Internal Auditor reported that in 2015/16 over £91 million was delegated to the Council’s Secondary, Primary and Special Schools and of the 59 schools operating at year end, 7 schools, 4 primary and 3 secondary, were in deficit with a value of £621,969.  She stated that all of these schools have been asked to produce a budget recovery plan. Of the 52 schools in surplus, 14 had surpluses that, under School Funding (Wales) Regulations 2010, are regarded as excessive and the Council may direct a governing body on how balances in excess of these limits may be spent or they can be clawed back. 

The Chief Internal Auditor also reported that during the year some specific risk based audits were undertaken and of the 9 pieces of work, one was a grant claim so no audit opinion was applicable.  Of the remaining 8 audits, five were given an audit opinion of reasonable and two were given limited assurance.  No assurance could be given on the internal controls of one school initially, however a subsequent visit found that improvements had been made and reasonable assurance was subsequently given.  The two limited assurance reports would be revisited again during the last quarter of 2016/17 to ensure that improvements to controls have been made. 

The Chief Internal Auditor reported that during 2015/16 it was found that the move away from cyclical school audit visits had proved a success in ensuring that the Internal Audit resource is targeted effectively to those areas where they are most needed, in that a total of 104 days of the 112 days allocated were utilised.  She informed the Committee that certain control weaknesses were identified during the year and appropriate recommendations made and accepted, overall it was concluded that the control environment within schools was good.

RESOLVED:         That the Committee considered the content of the report to ensure that all aspects of their core functions were being adequately reported.