Agenda item

The Council’s External Auditor (Grant Thornton) will submit a report on an audit of the IT General Controls including a SAP Technical Review.

The Council’s External Auditor (Grant Thornton) submitted a report on an audit of the IT General Controls including a SAP Technical Review.

The report which was presented by Mr G Mills and Mr T De Zoyza highlighted the following:

·         the background to the audit

·         a summary of the observations

·         the scope and summary of work completed

·         the classification of the recommendations

·         the detailed observations and recommendations

·         the follow up of prior year findings

Mr C Clarke (Grant Thornton) and Ms S Hydon (Head of ICT – Service Management) attended the meeting to answer Members detailed questions about the audit, its recommendations and action taken in response to the findings.

The report engendered a full and frank discussion during which matters of a detailed and general nature were raised and answers were given to Members questions where appropriate.  Particular reference was made to the following:

·         benchmarking with other Local Authorities and other similar entities which indicated that Barnsley performed better than most

·         discussions held between the External Auditors and Officers in relation to the findings and the mitigation of risk

·         the fact that there were no significant deficiencies and that no additional audit processes had been performed

·         the arrangements in place to liaise with and learn from other authorities

·         the way in which SAP was utilised across the Authority, the controls, security and risk mitigation arrangements in place

RESOLVED that the report be received, and the actions taken in response to the Audit be noted.

At the conclusion the following matters were briefly commented upon

·         the need for a report to be submitted to each meeting on the governance arrangements regarding the Glassworks project

·         Members were asked to submit to officers’ details of any items they wished to discuss at the October training/awareness session