Council conducted a virtual briefing from the Audit committee with the press in attendance. Recommended action from Council is to endorse this report at Council meeting. Mr Chris Badger was recently appointed as the Chair but prior to that Mr Andrew Purcell was the Chair of the Committee.
The full Audit Committee has endorsed this report after a thorough review by the Committee.
The Committee is independent of Council management. The Audit Policy was reviewed and approved of by Council on 28th August 2019. Since the last report there have been a number of new reporting obligations. The biggest one is the new Local Government Act 2020. That had various implications to the Audit Charter, and reporting requirements.
Mr Badger says the Committee is fully compliment with those requirements. The new requirements are that the Audit Committee must undertake an annual assessment of the Committee which Mr Badger states they already do. That is to be reported to the CEO who then informs the Council. They also must do a bi-annual report of the Committee’s performance. This report today is an annual report to be tabled at the next Council meeting. The Committee is comprised of 4 members, 3 independent members and one administrative member, (Administrator Brown). The Committee met 4 times during the last 12 months.
The following reviews were conducted in the last 12 months. Budget maintenance and including capital works and major projects, Occupation Health and Safety and returning to work, particularly linked to the new OHS Act. The summary of work completed by the Committee highlights include reviewing the quarterly performance report and considering Councils performance reports, continued oversight of Councils internal control system and policy framework, reviewing the organisations approach to risk management, reviewing relevant Council policies, reviewing Councils approach to people and culture processes and OH&S particularly important during covid19 which has been done extremely well by this Council. Considering Councils insurance coverage, continuing oversight of Councils business continuity plan again linked to covid19, reviewing the outcome and approving of the work of the internal audit function which includes the approving the internal audit plan, internal audit scopes, and reviewing the final reports and recommendations and ensuring in particular that those recommendations are monitored and are embodied into the processes and policies and systems of the business. Reviewing the findings of the external auditors’ report from VAGO. The external audit states that all matters had been rectified.
In closing the chair said there were no significant matters of concern were raised by the internal or external auditors or by any members of the Committee during the 19/20 financial year.
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