Agenda item

This report informs Members of the results of the surveys aimed at identifying the level of satisfaction with the services provided by the Internal Audit & Counter Fraud Teams.

Discussion:

The Head of Internal Audit and Counter Fraud Shared Service introduced the report which was discussed in two parts.

The last survey was undertaken in 2018/19 and whilst it had been intended to take survey’s annually this was impacted by Covid and lockdown. The results gathered would act as a baseline for comparison going forward

The Internal Audit Survey was issued to Elected Members, Service Managers and those in higher posts that interact with internal audit. Eight responses were received, five of the responses were from different areas of service with the other three from Members.

Members then raised a number of questions and comments which included:

• Internal Audit Survey – in response to questions on what could be done to improve the level of respondents as it was unacceptable to have had such low participation from departments top assess quality and whether timing was a factor, the officer acknowledged that the level of response was disappointing. A Commitment was made to explore different ways, utilising comms in order to improve on participation numbers. The survey took place annually at the end of April and was open for a period of three weeks. Consideration may be given to running it if possible, for a slightly longer period next year.

It was asked what learning was taken away from the responses. The Officer said that whilst there had been no identified issues, comments were made to improve comms which had been taken on board and would be taken forward. More would be done to try to generate increased responses in future.

The Head of Internal Audit and Counter Fraud Shared Service introduced the Counter Fraud Survey section of the report and informed the Committee that the survey had been sent to all Elected Members as well as all Council Staff, with a good level of participation which resulted in 200 responses. Awareness of services and role of the counter fraud team was poor, whilst ranking of the work undertaken was high.

The intention for both surveys was for a list to be compiled of all comments received that would be shared with all areas. An appeal would be sent to all negative respondents to contact so that intelligence would be gathered on the drivers behind the responses which would be collated and utilised to address issues.

Members then raised questions which included:

• Counter Fraud Survey- in response to a question on whether the department had a strategy in place working with senior leadership to increase awareness of the team and department and its function, the officer said that there were more details of the work they would be undertaking as part of the new Counter Fraud plan. There were plans in place to increase awareness across the Council. Specific risk assessments would also be undertaken in all key areas. Work was being undertaken on raising fraud awareness and including work with workforce development on building into the induction process

Decision:

The Committee noted the results of the Internal Audit and Counter Fraud satisfaction surveys.