Management Information Sheet
Norfolk Audit Services - Themed Audits
Norfolk Audit Services, as the County Council’s internal auditors, carry out audits of LA establishments on behalf of the Executive Director of Finance and Commercial Services to ensure good practice is being followed and that there is compliance with finance regulations. Our approach with LA maintained schools includes carrying out an annual programme of themed audits, visiting a representative sample of schools and sharing common findings and examples of good practice with all schools.
The Local Authority strongly recommend that the outcomes of these audits are considered by individual school’s governors and leadership teams and any necessary actions be taken in order to address any improvements required for each school. Any issues and proposed actions should be discussed by the relevant committee of the Governing Body for approval, monitoring and evaluation. Question 20 of the SFVS also makes reference to schools taking into account recommendations made from these type of audits.
LA Schools Finance Consultative Group have agreed that the RAG risk criteria should rate each school at the end of the finance year with either a ‘Green’ or ‘Red’ rating. For a green rating to be achieved, evidence needs to be provided to your school’s Finance Support Officers (FSO), in the form of Governor’s minutes highlighting where discussions have taken place relating to the themed audit findings. It has been agreed that this is necessary to make sure that all schools are undertaking serious consideration of the audit findings to reduce the level of risk in their school.
If Governor’s minutes cannot be provided before the end of the financial year this will lead to a Red Rag Rating being issued, and follow up actions to ensure compliance may be required.
Please see below links for details of the latest two thematic audits that have been carried out.