Corporate report

Audit Risk Assurance Committee minutes: 18 January 2022

Updated 26 November 2024

Applies to England

Present

Martin Spencer, Chair

Venessa Willms, Board member

Laura Wyld, Board member

Julie Kirkbride, Board member

James Aston, Co-opted member

Ian Looker, Co-opted member (observer)

Also in attendance

Amanda Spielman, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Accounting Officer

Louise Grainger, Director, Finance, Planning and Commercial

Board Secretary and Corporate Governance Manager

Emily Williams, Deputy Director, Strategy, Governance and Private Office (items 7 and 10)

Carol Hartley Burdett, GIAA

Tony Smith, GIAA

Sebastian Groth, NAO

Neil Harris, Ernst and Young

Apologies

Apologies were received from Matthew Coffey and Colin Wilcox.

Status

Approved

1. Chair’s introduction, declarations of interest, minutes, actions and matters arising

The chair welcomed Ian Looker, who is attending the meeting in advance of his appointment to ARAC as a co-opted member on 1 February 2022. The committee thanked James Aston who had served on ARAC for four years.

Laura Wyld declared that she is standing down from the House of Lords Public Services Committee. Laura has been appointed to the Children and Families Act 2014 (post legislative) Committee.

The minutes of the 17 November meeting were approved.

2. Report from Chair and Members

Committee members shared updates from their external roles. Members discussed hybrid working and continuing efforts to bring employees back to the workplace. The impact of covid on schools was also discussed.

3. Report from HMCI

Plan B restrictions will end on 26 January and office-based colleagues will be able to return to working from the office as normal. We will restart contracting with serving practitioner OIs where this is agreeable with their provision and will remain supportive of local issues around workforce availability as a result of covid.

Our deferral policy has provided reassurance to providers in recent weeks, and we will continue to encourage providers to request a referral where needed. This will continue for the remainder of this half term. This approach has worked well.

ARAC was advised of Regional Director, North East, Yorkshire & Humber, Emma Ing’s decision to retire on 31 March 2022. Following a recent recruitment campaign for two new roles, Chris Jones has been appointed Director, Strategy and Engagement, and Alex Jones has been appointed Director, Insights and Research.

4. Risk report

The committee reviewed the strategic risks and robustly challenged the mitigations to reduce their potential impact.

[Redacted]

[Redacted]

[Redacted]

[Redacted]

5. Progress against audit recommendations

One action arising from the regulatory review was delayed until December 2021 as the team undertaking the review had been deployed onto other work. This risk had been classified by GIAA as low priority. This action is now complete.

GIAA is reviewing the medium and high recommendations from the internal audit 2020-21 and will report to ARAC in March.

6. Internal audit

Progress continues to be made against the 2021-22 plan. The committee noted that four remaining audits will be brought to the March 2022 committee meeting.

The committee endorsed a change to the commercial assurance audit to an advisory review. When scoping the audit, it was considered that an advisory audit would be more appropriate at this stage of Ofsted’s development in this area.

7. Internal audit 2022-23

ARAC members were invited to comment on a list of potential audits for 2022-23. Potential areas for consideration suggested by ARAC members included learning from COVID-19, early years, workforce retention and development, IT security and child safeguarding.

The list of audits will be refined, and the plan will be brought to the next ARAC meeting on 16 March.

The committee discussed the GIAA’s approach to and the assessment of the adoption of standards, including GovS009: Internal audit. ARAC advised that the application of standards must be proportionate and relevant to Ofsted.

8. Progress Report 2021-22 and Planning for 2022-23

The committee was pleased to note the substantial assurance rating given to issued internal audit reports and thanked all those involved. The reports issued since the last committee meeting were child safeguarding processes; the aggregation of insights; HR assurance and core financial controls.

Committee members highlighted the disconnect between the scope of the audit and the title of the ‘Reporting and Response Processes for Child Safeguarding Concerns’ report. GIAA explained that substantive testing of processes was not conducted in any depth, because of the breath of the scope. An evaluation of the governance, risk management and controls in place was conducted. The 2022- 2023 audit will go into more depth.

Action: The title of the report will be amended to reflect the scope of the audit.

Committee members challenged the target date for completion of the actions in the ‘Reporting and Response Processes for Child Safeguarding Concerns’ report.

Action: GIAA to liaise with staff and consider whether the implementation dates in the ‘Reporting and Response Processes for Child Safety Concerns’ report are appropriate or should be amended.

9. External audit update

The interim audit will begin in February.

It was noted that audit timetable shared with the committee for this meeting was an earlier version. It was confirmed that the audit completion report will be presented to ARAC at the June meeting, as agreed at the November ARAC meeting.

10. External audit update - Value for Money and insight work

The committee noted the NAO value for money update report.

11. Interim governance statement

The committee reviewed the interim governance statement, noting that Venessa Willms attendance at ARAC meetings was omitted. Subject to this amendment, the committee was content with the statement.

12. Counter Fraud, Bribery and Corruption

A summary of the fraud, bribery and corruption risks was presented to the committee. The committee was satisfied that Ofsted continues to meet the requirements of the government counter fraud standard.

13. Finance report

The committee noted the financial position and welcomed that the budget exchange bid has now been approved by HM Treasury.

ARAC will be briefed on the 2022-23 budget at the March committee meeting.

14. AOB

There was no other business.

The next audit and risk assurance committee meeting will take place at 10:30am on Tuesday 16 March 2022.