CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee Paper 6 30/09/22

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY AUDIT & RISK COMMITTEE

FOR DIS­CUS­SION

Title: ACTION ON AUDIT RECOMMENDATIONS

Paper Pre­pared by: DAV­ID CAMER­ON, DEPUTY CHIEF EXEC­UT­IVE AND DIR­ECT­OR OF COR­POR­ATE SERVICES

Pur­pose

This paper presents an update to the Com­mit­tee on action taken to imple­ment con­trol improve­ments high­lighted by intern­al audit work.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee is asked to:

a) Note pro­gress made in imple­ment­a­tion of out­stand­ing intern­al audit recom­mend­a­tions; b) Agree to remove those intern­al audit recom­mend­a­tions high­lighted as either super­seded or where the cost of imple­ment­a­tion is con­sidered as out­weigh­ing the con­trol benefit.

Update on Imple­ment­a­tion of Audit Recommendations

1. An update on pro­gress made in imple­ment­ing intern­al audit recom­mend­a­tions is set out at Annex I to this paper. This update remains sub­ject to intern­al audit veri­fic­a­tion of actions taken and con­trols implemented.

2. The Com­mit­tee noted that there were a large num­ber of audit recom­mend­a­tions out­stand­ing when con­sid­er­ing the most recent update on pro­gress presen­ted by Azets. The Com­mit­tee recog­nised that many of these actions fell to Cor­por­ate Ser­vices teams which had been diver­ted over the last two years to restruc­tur­ing organ­isa­tion­al pro­cesses dur­ing the COVID19 lock­down peri­od and sub­sequently devel­op­ing new hybrid work­ing arrangements.

3. Seni­or man­agers under­took to review the list; pri­or­it­ise action where pos­sible; identi­fy appro­pri­ate revised imple­ment­a­tion timetables when required; and recom­mend remov­al of any recom­mend­a­tions from the list of out­stand­ing recom­mend­a­tions to the Com­mit­tee where it was con­sidered the action had been super­seded, or actions were con­sidered no longer rel­ev­ant or too costly to imple­ment. This work has now been com­pleted and set out in Annex 1.

4. Where appro­pri­ate, staff have provided an update on pro­gress made in Annex I against imple­ment­a­tion of recom­mend­a­tions. Those recom­mend­a­tions which have been com­pleted are indic­ated as such in the Annex and high­lighted in green. Where actions are under­way, these are high­lighted in amber.

5. A num­ber of items have been recom­men­ded for remov­al from the list of con­trol improve­ment recom­mend­a­tions. Reas­ons have been giv­en for each in the Annex and the Com­mit­tee is invited to review these recom­mend­a­tions and if appro­pri­ate agree their remov­al from the list.

6. A full update on out­stand­ing audit recom­mend­a­tions will be brought back to the Com­mit­tee by Azets, fol­low­ing their review of sup­port­ing evid­ence of work under­taken and con­trols implemented.

Dav­id Cameron 21 Septem­ber 2022 davidcameron@​cairngorms.​co.​uk