Learning and Development
Source: data.gov.uk (2018-10-29)

CYC Internal Audit Reports 2017. These reports are presented to the Audit and Governance Committee for consideration, and are also included with the agenda papers for the [relevant meetings](http://democracy.york.gov.uk/ieListMeetings.aspx?CommitteeId=437). 

Reports are also grouped together by calendar year and published at this York Open Data platform. Reports for other years are available at the [__CYC Internal Audit Reports__](https://data.yorkopendata.org/dataset?q=internal+audit&sort=score+desc%2C+metadata_modified+desc) datasets.

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Learning and Development 2016-17 
City of York Council 
Internal Audit Report  
 
 
 
 
 
 
Business Unit: Customer and Corporate Services 
Responsible Officer: Deputy Chief Executive & Director of Customer & Corporate Services 
Service Manager: Head of HR & OD 
Date Issued: 10th January 2017 
Status: Final 
Reference: 19130/012 
 
Overall Audit Opinion 
Substantial Assurance 
Actions 
2 
0 
P3 
P2 
P1 
1 

 
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Summary and Overall Conclusions 
 
Introduction 
The Workforce Development Unit (WDU) provides learning and development opportunities to the whole of the City of York Council workforce. In 
addition it also serves individuals and organisations who provide care, support or services to adults and children in York. The WDU offers a 
variety of learning opportunities to ensure the council develops its staff so that it can keep serving the city and delivering services.  
 
The WDU provided 1,360 courses in 2015/16 attended by 11,800 people with the attendees being evenly split between internal and external 
customers. The WDU has a net budget of £579k with £108k of funding being received from clients.  
 
Objectives and Scope of the Audit 
The purpose of this audit was to provide assurance to management that procedures and controls within the system will ensure that: 
 
• 
There is a wide variety of learning opportunities offered which meet the council's objectives for developing its workforce; 
• 
training programmes are of high quality and as per the specification; 
• 
there is a process to ensure learning resources  are booked and authorised appropriately;  
• 
all money is collected from clients promptly and accurately; 
• 
a record is kept of training; 
• 
personal data is stored securely. 
 
Key Findings 
A wide variety of training courses were available with a dedicated website and brochures that customers could use to book places on training 
courses. The records of training courses were also kept on a secure system where access was restricted appropriately. 
 
However, the WDU has a reliance on human intervention resulting in areas where there was insufficient evidence to confirm whether the 
procedures were operating as intended. The process for returning both course registers and evaluation forms is not being monitored effectively 
which has resulted in forms being missing. If more training courses are to be provided in future then the WDU needs to ensure that the 
procedures being used can cope with the additional numbers. 
Overall Conclusions 
It was found that the arrangements for managing risk were good with few weaknesses identified. There is an effective control environment in 
place but scope for further improvements to be made. Our overall opinion of the controls within the system at the time of the audit was that they 
provided Substantial Assurance.  

 
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1 Course Registers and Evaluation forms 
Issue/Control Weakness 
Risk 
Registers and training course evaluation forms were not always present nor 
was there any process to identify training providers who persistently do not 
provide training courses of the required quality. 
Attendance at training courses cannot be confirmed for 
external customers who should be charged. 
 
 Poor quality training courses that do not deliver the expected 
outcomes are not being identified. 
Findings 
At the start of each training course candidates sign a register to confirm attendance at the course. The register is then returned to the WDU by 
the training course provider along with evaluation forms, which are completed by attendees of the course, A sample of training courses was 
taken which showed registers and evaluation forms had not been returned in half of the cases. There was also no record or log being kept 
which shows which training course providers had not returned course registers or evaluation forms so that the provider could be contacted to 
return them. 
 
Although issues relating to individual training courses would be taken up by the WDU, there is no consolidation work being done to identify 
under performing training providers. The evaluation responses for each training course are recorded on a spreadsheet to give an overall 
evaluation of the training course but no comparisons are made with previous evaluations from training courses that have been carried out by 
the same training provider. This means that no trends are being identified where providers are not delivering training courses to the required 
standard.  
 
It was also noted that the data extraction tool which extracted data from course evaluation returns on SDMS onto the spreadsheet was not 
working correctly which resulted in data from the same form being included in two columns. 
Agreed Action 1.1 
Once forms are returned to WDU the Business Support hub update the system. A manual 
record of any missing forms is kept and chased on a regular basis, if, after 4 weeks, a 
response has not been received then this is passed to one of our Facilitators to follow up. 
The facilitators will also record any activity on the system so it is easy to identify a course of 
action. 
 
A comparative look at the evaluations on a quarterly basis will now be produced. This will 
allow any trends or changes in trends to be identified and acted upon.  
Priority 
2 
Responsible Officer 
Business Support 
Manager 
Timescale 
30th June 2017 
 
  
 

 
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2 Customers with outstanding arrears 
Issue/Control Weakness 
Risk 
There is no formal process to identify and record customers with large value 
and long standing arrears in order to potentially block their ability to book places 
on training courses. 
Customers with large value outstanding arrears continue to 
book places on training courses and in doing incur additional 
debt which is not paid. 
Findings 
The Customer Accounts team are responsible for raising invoices and recovering outstanding arrears on behalf of the WDU. However, there is 
no formal process to identify customers with large value outstanding arrears for long periods of time. There is also no way of identifying 
customers on SDMS who should not be able to book further places on training courses until they have paid their existing outstanding debts. 
Agreed Action 2.1 
Our current system does not allow the WDU to block particular customers from booking on 
to courses. The WDU are currently in the process of identifying and procuring a 
replacement system and will ensure that this is a requirement of the specification for the 
new system. 
Priority 
3 
Responsible Officer 
Business Support 
Manager 
Timescale 
30th June 2017 
 
  
 

 
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3 Workforce Strategy Document 
Issue/Control Weakness 
Risk 
The Workforce strategy document is now out of date. 
The council's plans for developing its workforce are out of 
date which may result in the council not achieving its 
corporate objectives. 
Findings 
The Workforce Strategy, which is attached to the council's intranet, covers the period 2012 to 2015 which details the council's policies to 
develop its workforce in order to achieve its corporate objectives. This document is now out of date with a new version required. 
Agreed Action 3.1 
The new document is the 2016 to 2020 People Plan which was approved by the Executive 
in June, this will need to be uploaded to the intranet so is easily accessible. 
Priority 
3 
Responsible Officer 
Head of Business HR 
Timescale 
31st March 2017 
 
 

 
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Annex 1 
Audit Opinions and Priorities for Actions 
Audit Opinions 
Audit work is based on sampling transactions to test the operation of systems. It cannot guarantee the elimination of fraud or 
error. Our opinion is based on the risks we identify at the time of the audit. 
 
Our overall audit opinion is based on 5 grades of opinion, as set out below. 
 
Opinion 
Assessment of internal control 
High Assurance 
Overall, very good management of risk. An effective control environment appears to be in operation. 
Substantial 
Assurance 
Overall, good management of risk with few weaknesses identified.  An effective control environment is in 
operation but there is scope for further improvement in the areas identified. 
Reasonable 
Assurance 
Overall, satisfactory management of risk with a number of weaknesses identified.  An acceptable control 
environment is in operation but there are a number of improvements that could be made. 
Limited Assurance 
Overall, poor management of risk with significant control weaknesses in key areas and major 
improvements required before an effective control environment will be in operation. 
No Assurance 
Overall, there is a fundamental failure in control and risks are not being effectively managed.  A number of 
key areas require substantial improvement to protect the system from error and abuse. 
 
Priorities for Actions 
Priority 1 
A fundamental system weakness, which presents unacceptable risk to the system objectives and requires urgent 
attention by management. 
Priority 2 
A significant system weakness, whose impact or frequency presents risks to the system objectives, which needs to 
be addressed by management. 
Priority 3 
The system objectives are not exposed to significant risk, but the issue merits attention by management. 
 

 
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