Revised Approach to School Audit

  1. Under the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2011, Hertfordshire County Council (HCC) has to make provision for an adequate and effective Internal Audit which will cover the whole of its business including schools. The revised approach to the audit of schools is in line with best practice and devotes resources to providing assurance in the areas of greatest risk.
  1. The Internal Audit service for schools is delivered by the Shared Internal Audit Service (SIAS) that is based in the County Council’s Stevenage Offices. The revised approach will ensure that there is a focus on those HCC corporate objectives that relate to schools (Ensure a positive childhood and Ensure a good education for all) and the risks to achieving these.
  1. By focusing resources where there is the greatest risk, SIAS has been able to reduce the resources devoted to schools audit from a planned audit input of 1050 days per year to a planned audit input of 300 days a year. The revised approach also looks at schools as a whole population rather than at each individual school.
  1. The revised arrangements for Internal Audit also fulfil the need for the system of Internal Audit that is required by the Schools Financial Value Standard (SFVS). In addition, resources will remain available to assist those schools who need assistance to improve their Internal Control environment.
  1. Under the revised strategy a sample of schools will be audited in the year and learning points arising from these reviews will be shared with all schools. When a school is selected for an audit visit this is a compulsory visit and by the very nature of sampling one school may be audited twice while a neighbouring school is not audited. Our a period of time all schools will receive an audit visit.
  1. The new strategy for school audit has the approval of the Director of Resources and the Audit Commission (HCC’s External Auditor). The arrangements are to be shared by school’s forum and more widely in Children’s Services in October after which the strategy will be available on the grid.
  1. Schools will still receive three weeks notice of an audit visit and a report of the audit findings. Learning points from all audit visits will be shared with the whole population of maintained schools in Hertfordshire.