VOA Audit Committee - Report November 2007

AUDIT COMMITTEE REPORT

1. Purpose

To report to the Board on the Audit Committee meeting held on 29 November 2007.

2. Recommendation

For information only. No action required.

3. Detail

Following an action point from the previous meeting, which looked at a number of IT audits, Ian Milliken attended the Audit Committee to provide the background and an update on the work being undertaken

3.2  PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) introduced their draft Audit Strategy and highlighted the main points from the document, which included the way they will work in partnership with NAO, the identified risks for their work and their independence. 

3.3  Ian Orpwood provided an update on the progress against the Internal Audit plan for 2007-08 and provided a progress report showing the position of each audit and the budget and outturn of days for each.  Ian also advised the meeting that at that point, on the audits in progress, no serious issues had arisen.

3.4  Ian provided information on the process for the Internal Audit plan for 2008-09.  Improving on previous years’ practice of numerous individual meetings, the IA would begin by meeting VOA management collectively at the MB workshop, to identify any audits that the Agency has identified.

3.5  Ian presented an Audit Committee Planned Activity & Timing schedule, built on further from the NAO’s product list presented at the September meeting.  This identified the deliverables for each of the next four meetings for IA, NAO and VOA.

3.6  Following initial discussions at the September meeting, it was agreed that the full audit reports - for discussion by the Committee with the VOA ‘customer present - would be identified from early circulation of the Executive Summaries and risks highlighted by NAO or the Strategic Risk Register.

3.7  Ian presented the IA report on the Review of VOA Risk Management.  Audit’s overall view was of a ‘pretty good picture’ and found some very good examples of risk management out in the network.  The recommended implementation plan would be completed after discussions on risk at the Management Board workshop where the Strategic Risk Register would also be reviewed.