Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee Paper 3

21 June 2023

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For Decision

Title: Intern­al Audit Annu­al Report ²⁰²²⁄₂₃

Pre­pared by: Eliza­beth Young, Chief Intern­al Aud­it­or, Azets

Pur­pose

This paper sum­mar­ises our con­clu­sions and key find­ings from the intern­al audit work under­taken at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity dur­ing the year ended 31 March 2023, includ­ing our over­all opin­ion on Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s intern­al con­trol system.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee is asked to:

a) Con­sider the intern­al aud­it­ors annu­al report for ²⁰²²⁄₂₃; b) Note the intern­al audit annu­al opin­ion as set out in page 3 of the report and endorse the inclu­sion of that opin­ion with­in the Gov­ernance State­ment for ²⁰²²⁄₂₃.

Exec­ut­ive Summary

As the Intern­al Aud­it­or of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity, Azets are required to provide the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee annu­ally with assur­ance on the whole sys­tem of intern­al con­trol. Azets Intern­al Audit Annu­al Report for ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ includes their over­all opin­ion that:

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity has a frame­work of gov­ernance, risk man­age­ment and con­trols that provides reas­on­able assur­ance regard­ing the effect­ive and effi­cient achieve­ment of object­ives. We note how­ever a sig­ni­fic­ant num­ber of audit actions remain out­stand­ing from pre­vi­ous years, some of which are now aged.

The full Intern­al Audit Annu­al Report provid­ing wider con­text on this over­all intern­al audit opin­ion is provided in full as an Annex to this paper.

The intern­al aud­it­ors opin­ion is typ­ic­ally included as part of the Gov­ernance State­ment, form­ing part of the Park Authority’s Annu­al Report and Accounts. The draft Gov­ernance State­ment is to be con­sidered by the Com­mit­tee else­where on the agenda for the

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meet­ing. The Com­mit­tee is asked to endorse the inclu­sion of the intern­al aud­it­ors’ opin­ion as part of the Gov­ernance Statement.

The ref­er­ence in the opin­ion to the num­ber of audit actions out­stand­ing is covered by a sep­ar­ate report to the Com­mit­tee, also included else­where on the agenda for the cur­rent meeting.

Dav­id Cameron