Southampton City Council is 'not out of the woods yet'

Chief internal auditor Elizabeth Goodwin said the local authority still had work to do before it could be given a “cleaner bill of health”.

The senior officer gave the council a “limited assurance” rating in relation to the effectiveness of the control environment across the organisation.

Ms Goodwin told members of the audit committee there were a number of reasons for this assessment.

“While the authority is under significant financial pressures and it has made brilliant inroads in relation to that, it is not out of the woods yet,” she said.

“It is the same as with transformation.

“That is quite a comprehensive programme so again there are activities that the organisation needs to do before it has a cleaner bill of health.”

The committee meeting on Monday, August 4, heard 40 per cent of the internal audits carried out across the past year had come out as ‘limited assurance’.

There were approximately eight areas where it had remained difficult for measures to be implemented to address risk exposures which had been identified over the past few years.

Councillors asked why the council remained at ‘limited assurance’ given the work that had taken place over the past year to stabilise budgets and maintain tight financial controls.

Ms Goodwin said: “You are not out of the woods yet (financially) and that puts significant strain.

“You have less resource across the whole of the council that puts significant strain.

“You have a backdrop of LGR coming up.

“You have a number of priorities and pressures and the audit results across the year and that have been presented over previous years still have work to do.

“It is definitely moving in the right direction but you have got a little way to go yet.”