The councillor responsible for Richmond’s finances has denied there is a lack control and services are at risk after an attack by opposition councillors.

Councillor Stephen Knight, Richmond Council deputy leader and cabinet member for resources, defended the borough’s auditing processes and said external assessments backed up his view.

Senior members of Richmond Conservatives had attacked the financial controls after an internal audit report last month. They claimed projects including primary school expansion and the building of academies were at risk.

Councillor Geoffrey Samuel, opposition deputy leader, said the council’s auditors had provided a “shocking list of negligence” with systems failures “everywhere”.

He pinpointed missing CRB checks for those working with children, a lack of cash reconciliation, lax contract signing, poor stock-keeping records and evidence major expenditure was not always reported to senior councillors.

And Councillor David Porter, chairman of the borough’s audit committee, said the council’s corporate register showed high levels of risk applied to some key projects.

Councillor Knight said the Audit Commission – the independent body responsible for ensuring public money is used economically, efficiently and effectively – had given the borough a high mark for its internal control and audit procedures and, although the risk of fraud or process failure could never be eliminated completely, robust controls were in place. “We operate an open and accountable system of internal audit designed to quickly identify any areas where the council is failing to follow adequate processes,” he said.

“In all the cases identified action is taken to ensure control processes are tightened and no fraud has occurred.

“This is not a party political issue, as the most serious control failure identified by internal audit in recent times actually occurred during the last Conservative administration, but as always our officers took swift action to address the problem.”

He said Coun Porter did not “understand” the purpose of the risk register, which was “sound business practice to identify the areas where risks are high to ensure they are kept under regular review by officers and councillors”.

“The council ensures it has an action plan in place against all the risks to reduce the risk as far as possible and monitors and openly reports the results of those actions,” he said.