Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee — Paper 4

19 April 2024

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For decision

Title: Intern­al Audit Report Man­age­ment Action Fol­low up ²⁰²³⁄₂₄

Cov­er paper pre­pared by: Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Operations

Annex pre­pared by: Eliza­beth Young, Chief Intern­al Aud­it­or; Stephanie Hume, Seni­or Audit Man­ager, Azets

Pur­pose

This paper presents the intern­al auditor’s inde­pend­ent over­view of man­age­ment action taken on pre­vi­ous intern­al audit recom­mend­a­tions raised and agreed. The fol­low-up review work repor­ted here is part of the intern­al audit pro­gramme agreed for ²⁰²³⁄₂₄.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee is asked to:

a) Note the pro­gress made by man­age­ment in imple­ment­ing agreed man­age­ment actions; and b) Note the revised due dates attrib­uted to actions that remain outstanding.

Exec­ut­ive summary

1. Azets, the Park Authority’s Intern­al Aud­it­ors, have under­taken a fol­low-up review of action taken to address pre­vi­ous audit recom­mend­a­tions raised and agreed by the Com­mit­tee, to provide the Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee with assur­ance that man­age­ment actions agreed in pre­vi­ous intern­al audit reports have been imple­men­ted appro­pri­ately. The report of their fol­low-up review is provided in full at the Annex to this paper. The report sum­mar­ises the pro­gress made by man­age­ment in imple­ment­ing agreed man­age­ment actions.

2. Azets have reviewed all open man­age­ment actions and liaised with Park Author­ity staff to obtain an update on their imple­ment­a­tion pro­gress. This includes man­age­ment identi­fy­ing actions that are no longer applic­able. For recom­mend­a­tions graded pri­or­ity 3 or above, Azets request evid­ence to val­id­ate com­ple­tion of any actions marked for clos­ure by management.

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1. There were 41 open actions brought for­ward from the last report (Novem­ber 2023); there are 28 actions car­ried forward.

2. Two actions con­sidered no longer applic­able have been closed by the Auditor.

Con­clu­sion

1. We are gradu­ally mak­ing pro­gress in imple­ment­ing audit recom­mend­a­tions. We acknow­ledge that fur­ther work is required to clear the remain­ing recom­mend­a­tions brought for­ward from pre­vi­ous years. How­ever, a report of pro­gress against each of the out­stand­ing items has been provided, and this cla­ri­fies the work remain­ing to be done.

2. Tar­get dates for com­ple­tion have been reviewed and revised.

Louise Allen louiseallen@​cairngorms.​co.​uk