Agenda item

Report of the Director of Governance & Digital Services (AGC/22/15) attached.

NB.  Jo McCormick representing the Devon Audit Partnership (DAP) was present for this item of business.

The Committee considered a report of the Director of Governance & Digital Services (AGC/22/15 on the progress made against the approved Internal Audit Plan for 2022-23 together with an update on the completion of the 2021-22 Plan.  The report also included a proposal for a revised Internal Audit Plan for 2022-23.

It was noted that work on delivery of the 2022-23 Plan had been delayed as a result of the late completion of the 2021-22 work.  The following audits were in the process of being completed now as part of completion of the 2021-22 Plan:

·      Organisational Safeguarding Assurance;

·      Information Security – Availability of Systems; and

·      Use of Data.

Key Financial Systems had been omitted inadvertently from the previous report to the Committee (CSC/22/10) but this had been completed now with a level of reasonable assurance.  The impact of the carry forward of work from the 2021-22 Plan together with the implementation of the Transfer of Undertakings and Protection of Employment (TUPE) requirements to move over internal audit to the Devon Audit Partnership (DAP) had impacted substantially on the ability to deliver against the 2022-23 Plan.

In terms of the 2022-23 Plan, 2 audits had been completed, namely:

·      Crewing pool – limited assurance; and

·      Application of Learning – limited assurance. 

The report also set out the progress made on the actions taken in respect of those audits previously reported to the Committee in July 2022 with limited assurance.  These audits were:

·       Community Safety – Fire Prevention;

·       Personal Protective Equipment (PPE); and

·       Flexi Duty Rota.

At this point, reference was made to the position on the number of Home Fire Safety Visits undertaken and assurance was sought on the Service’s confidence level in delivery of the target for 18000 visits in 2022-23.  The Deputy Chief Fire Officer responded that the Service was on track to meet this target and he explained that the issue previously reported had been largely to do with the extrapolation of data from the visits.  He added that an external consultant had been engaged to work with the Service on this matter and he was confident that the target would be achieved.  The Committee noted that performance updates on home fire safety visits were reported in depth to the Community Safety Committee but asked for the updated number of visits achieved to be included as part of this report to the next meeting in January 2023.

Attention was also drawn to the audit of PPE and the issue of contaminants and the point was made that the completion date for the station audits of April 2023 seemed to be quite long given this was a major risk to staff.  The question was asked as to whether it would be practicable to have a short video produced for eLearning for staff to plug the gap on this important issue in the meantime.  The Deputy Chief Fire Officer referred to a report on contaminants that had been commissioned by the Fire Brigades’ Union with the University of Central Lancashire.  The Service had already begun implementing changes to procedure on stations to address the issues of contaminated PPE and this matter was discussed as a standing item at the Joint Strategic Safety Committee.  The Chief Fire Officer added that the Service already had key safety videos in place for eLearning and that he would make arrangements for the Committee to be more sighted on this area.  He undertook to include additional paragraphs in the next Internal Audit report to provide assurance on the effectiveness of the Service’s procedures for ensuring the safety and competence of its staff.  This could involve using screen grabs to demonstrate the way in which the Service was mitigating the risks through training and to arrange a presentation at a future Members’ Forum for information.

At this point, the Committee received a presentation given by Jo McCormick of the DAP on the way in which it would be undertaking the role of internal audit for the Authority in future.  A copy of the presentation slides would be emailed out to the Committee for reference.

RESOLVED

(a).          that the revised 2022-23 internal audit plan be approved;

(b).         that future updates on progress in addressing the findings of audits with a limited assurance rating be submitted to the Committee on at least an annual basis until there is sufficient assurance that appropriate action had been taken; and

(c).          subject to (a) and (b) above, together with the provision of further assurance on the number of Home Fire Safety Visits completed in 2022-23 and on the Service’s procedures for ensuring the safety and competence of staff, the report be noted.