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CAIRNGORMS NATIONAL PARK AUTHORITY 
Audit Committee Paper 2 21/08/09 

CAIRNGORMS NATIONAL PARK AUTHORITY 


FOR DECISION 

Title: 
INTERNAL AUDIT REVIEW: LEADER PROJECT 

Prepared by: 
LISA MacDONALD, DELOITTE 
DAVID CAMERON, HEAD OF CORPORATE SERVICES 

Purpose 

To present Deloitte’s internal audit findings on their review of the Authority’s LEADER 
project. 

Recommendations 

The Committee is asked to: 

a) Consider the internal auditor’s findings on the operation of the Authority’s LEADER 
project, as set out in Annex 1; 
b) Endorse or amend the management responses to the recommendations for action. 

Executive Summary 

Deloitte, the Authority’s internal auditors, have undertaken a review of the Authority’s 
LEADER project at the request of the Head of Corporate Services. The Authority agreed a 
new Service Level Agreement (SLA) covering the operation of the LEADER programme 
between Scottish Government and funded bodies in 2008. The SLA requires that lead 
bodies in receipt of LEADER funds undertake an internal audit of their LEADER systems 
each year. As the first internal audit review of the area, this has been a relatively substantial 
piece of work, to familiarise auditors with requirements and the Authority’s business 
processes in this area of operation. The head of Corporate Services anticipates that 
ongoing reviews may be smaller in scale, with perhaps a further, fuller review in year 4 of 
the 6 year programme. Costs of the audit have been allocated to the LEADER budget, and 
element of which will be reclaimed from the administration support element of LEADER 
funding. 

The review finds that in 2 of 6 areas of control, arrangements in place accord with good 
practice. In 3 of the remaining 4 areas, adequate arrangements for financial control are in 
place while there is scope for improvement in certain matters. The final area of control, 
management of this new SLA, is assessed as offering scope for improvement. Five 
recommendations for action are highlighted (3 at priority 2 and 2 at priority 3). 

All recommendations have been accepted by the Head of Corporate Services and Finance 
Manager. The Deloitte report set out at Annex 1 includes draft management responses to 
these recommendations, including suggested responsibility and timescale for action where 
appropriate. In some cases, action has already been taken.