Local authority-maintained school financial internal audits. - Find a freedom of information request

I am writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request information held by your council on local authority-maintained school financial internal audits.

Specifically, I would like to be sent:

1) The number of schools that haven't been audited since January 1, 2019

2) Of these schools, the name of the school(s) with the longest wait since its last internal audit. I would like you to also state the year in which the school(s) was last audited

3) Does the council publish the findings from its audit reports in the public domain? If so, it would be appreciated if you could state whether the council names schools, how they are published and provide me with any relevant links

4) The number of council investigations launched on the back of local authority-maintained school internal audit reports, along with information on what the investigation centred on, the year(s) the probe took place and a copy of the investigation report

5) Council guidance outlining how often, when and why internal audits are carried out

I can confirm that the information requested is held by Lincolnshire County Council (LCC). I have detailed below the information that is being released to you.

1. There are a total of 126 maintained schools that have not been audited since 01/01/2019

2. In line with internal data retention policy and in order to comply with data protection legislation, we do not retain records beyond 6 years, and therefore we are unable to confirm the name of the school(s) which has had the longest wait for an internal audit or the last date of audit.

3. The council publishes an overview of findings from audit reports via the Audit Committee. These are presented annually to the Audit Committee in the Internal Audit Annual Report and individual schools are named. Information on the committee, meeting agendas, meeting pack documents and minutes can be found via the link below:

https://lincolnshire.moderngov.co.uk/mgCommitteeDetails.aspx?ID=133

4. LCC are not in a position to share this information. In order to carry out effective investigations, we carry out interviews with witnesses where they are afforded anonymity in order that they can speak openly to investigators. Further, investigation reports also identify investigation and intelligence techniques which we cannot disclose as this would compromise the systems which we seek to protect.

5. In accordance with Internal Audit’s risk-based audit approach, a risk assessment of all schools is completed each year. The outcome of the risk assessment determines which schools will be selected for audit in that particular year.