Page 20 - Staff FocusSeptember 2020

An Annual Audit with a difference puts SCTS ahead of pack

The Coronavirus months have presented prevented the excellent preparation before the audit and our
problems to be solved and changes to be made in areas proactive use of file sharing.
all across SCTS business. For the Finance team, these The core annual accounts team in Finance and
included the question of how to carry out the Annual Procurement are in strong agreement that using file
Audit when people were working from home and no one sharing gave us focus on what the auditors needed and
could get in to Saughton House. Gillian Battison tells we plan to meet with Scott Moncrieff in a couple of
here how that particular hill was climbed. months’ time to share our experience and any lessons we
can take forward to next year.
The Board approved the SCTS Annual Report and As we responded to audit questions and worked
Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2020 at their remotely; we identified some areas where we could
meeting in August. This marks the culmination of a become more efficient before and throughout the audit
tremendous amount of work and effort by teams and and provide more support to colleagues in the coming
colleagues across SCTS and our external audit team from year. These include:
Scott Moncrieff. Distancing: Remote working meant the process could proceed • further guidance and learning materials
The 3 week audit had been due to start on 15 June with and will have open access to colleagues to ask questions. or all users of our PECOS Purchasing system;
our auditors in Saughton House while they reviewed Several areas of the audit can run in parallel. • supporting colleagues in preparing for the audit;
evidence and conducted tests. COVID-19 lockdown This proactive provision of evidence meant that the team • preparing evidence gathering procedure notes
presented Finance with a whole new set of circumstances only needed to go in to Saughton House once during the for use within the team;
which challenged delivery of the audit alongside the tasks audit, to provide scans of a few Finance and HR paper files • carrying out some sample checks ourselves
of operating a finance team remotely and supporting that were held there. prior to the audit;
operational areas in their requirements. Working with our Evidence uploaded included Board and Committee • maintaining regular communication with the
auditors we quickly came up with a plan to use their reports and papers, payroll documents, financial journals, auditors and the rest of the team on audit progress.
secure cloud based file sharing system and set about reconciliations and reports. We will work on these areas over the next few months.
proactively identifying the evidence that the auditor It was a sizeable task and massive thanks are due to Following approval by the Board on 17 August, the
would need. colleagues across Finance and Procurement, Human Annual Report and Accounts were submitted to Audit
Colleagues in Finance and Human Resources were given Resources, Property Services and the Planning, Projects Scotland and will be ‘laid’ in Parliament.
access to the system to upload documents and, over a and Risk team, who all worked hard and collegiately to As a public document it will then be uploaded to the
short period, we uploaded nearly 4,000 separate ensure the auditors had everything that they needed. SCTS website.
documents between May and July. The audit usually As a result of good planning and discipline and All Finance and Procurement colleagues, along with
takes place with us providing a space for around 6 collaborative work with our auditors, we adhered to our colleagues from other corporate areas, continue to
auditors on-site in Saughton House to base themselves for original schedule of starting the “remote” audit and work from home as Saughton House remains closed.
3 weeks. We provide temporary access to desktops and completing it on time. The auditors confirmed that SCTS If it was any other year I think we would arrange post
specific drives containing our documents. Each auditor were the first of their clients to complete their audit audit drinks but for now we’ll make do with a drink
will have responsibility for a specific ‘area’ of the audit under these difficult circumstances due in no small part to from home!