Date: 14 August 2025

Time: 14:00

Venue: MS Teams

Present—

•  Ed Pybus (Chair of Audit Sub-Committee)
• Judith Paterson (Audit Sub-Committee Member)
• Adam Bennett (Audit Sub-Committee Member)

In attendance—

• Lisa Duthie, Senior Audit Manager, Audit Scotland;
• Grant Harrison, Auditor, Audit Scotland.
• Ian Davidson, Head of Social Security Policy, Scottish Government and Accountable Officer for SCoSS; (In attendance for items 1-6)
• Julie McKinney, Head of Social Security Strategy, Welfare Fund and Winter Benefits, Scottish Government;
• Munwar Hussain, Scottish Welfare Fund Manager, Scottish Government.
• Harry Boswell, Financial Planning Team Leader, Scottish Government;
• Allan Mcclintock, Finance Team Leader, Scottish Government;
• Igor Zamorski, Finance Lead, Scottish Government.
• Stephen Herbert, Secretary, SCoSS; and
• Lisa Kinnear, Governance and Engagement Officer; SCoSS.

Ed Pybus welcomed the attendees to the third Audit Sub-Committee meeting of 2025.

No interests were declared.

The Minutes of the May 2025 meeting of the Audit Sub-Committee were agreed.

Lisa Duthie spoke to the content of the covering letter and noted that the accounts were unqualified.

The Audit Sub-Committee noted the content of the ISA 580 Covering letter.

Grant Harrison, Audit Scotland, spoke to the content of the Annual Audit Report 2024-25. Grant noted that the annual audit report identified one misstatement relating to an audit fee accrual which did not have a material impact on the financial statements.

Grant noted that an area of audit focus for 2024-25 had been the change of the Scottish Government finance system to Oracle Cloud.  Detailed testing did not identify any issues arising from the transition to the new system.  In addition, it was noted that the recommendation from the previous year’s audit report had now been fully implemented.  Lastly, Grant highlighted that the 2024-25 audit was the last audit as the Social Security (Amendment) (Scotland) Act 2025 removed the requirement for external audit of the Commission.

The Audit Sub-Committee noted the content of the report.

The Accountable Officer noted his thanks to everyone involved in the 2024-25 audit process and stated that he was content to sign the draft annual report and accounts.

The Audit Sub-Committee agreed to recommend to the Board that the draft annual report and accounts be approved.

Stephen Herbert noted that the risk register was reviewed at the June Board meeting at which it was agreed to remove the risks that were no longer relevant.  A revised version of the register, removing outdated risks was considered by the Sub-Committee.

The Audit Sub-Committee agreed to include the date the risks were removed in the revised risk register for consideration at the next meeting of the SCoSS Board.

The Audit Sub-Committee noted that there had been no losses or special payments since the previous meeting in May.

Stephen Herbert noted his thanks to Audit Scotland and Scottish Government finance colleagues for their work on the 2024-25 audit.

Meeting closed at 14:25