Agenda item

Corporate Governance, Risk and Compliance Officer (see recommendations)

The Corporate Governance, Risk and Compliance Officer introduced the Annual Governance Statement (AGS) to be approved as part of the annual statement of accounts.  The AGS, which the council had a statutory duty to prepare, covered the period for 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2016.  The committee needed to satisfy itself that the AGS fairly reflected the arrangements within the Council, and that the suggested action plan would address the significant governance issues identified by the review.  In March, assurance tables and evidence tables were issued to the Directors for completion, with the evidence tables acting as an internal control checklist which confirms and reviews the existence and adequacy of governance and control arrangements and identifies any significant absence of, or weaknesses in, the control.  If any of the issues identified are considered to be significant, they are added to Significant Issues Action Plan and three issues had been included this year; Delivery and effective testing of the new ICT disaster recovery plan, business continuity plans and the Purchase Order management system.  The statement had already been reviewed by the Senior Leadership Team, Corporate Governance group, Internal Audit, the Leader of the Council and the Head of Paid Service.  The committee were being asked to approve the AGS and recommend that the Leader and Head of Paid Service sign the AGS so that it could be included within the statement of accounts. 

The following responses were offered to member questions;

·         Quotation marks had been positioned around the words ‘business case’ at 9c of the AGS as the level of detail contained within a business case depended on the complexity of the project.  These would be removed to avoid any confusion.

·         There had always been a standard PID template and this had been updated following the AG&M review.  As agreed, following that review, the Overview and Scrutiny Committee were given the opportunity to consider PIDs and decide how and when they wanted to scrutinise a particular project.

·         Client Officers at the Council were involved in monitoring shared services.  Within each agreement (which were much like Service Level Agreements but not always necessary given this title), certain requirements are specified.  Performance was monitored on a quarterly basis and it was at this stage that the continued relevance of any measured would be discussed.  It was agreed that the paragraph 3b would be amended to read ‘The client officers monitor contractual arrangements and key performance indicators within the contract and report findings to the Senior Leadership Team.’

·         The CIPFA code stated what had to be included in the AGS but this did not preclude the Council from adding something in addition.  Whilst there was not specific mention of it, the Equalities policy fell under the title of ‘Human Resources policies’.

·         It wasn’t within the remit of the AGS to make specific mention of those that apposed something on ethical grounds but this was something that Emma Cathcart from the Counter Fraud Unit would look at, at this could well be an issue that her team would encounter as part of their work, from an internal or external standpoint. 

·         All Project Managers overseeing significant projects at the Council were PRINCE 2 qualified.

The Chairman was reluctant to agree any changes to the AGS given that it was a retrospective but he was happy for Officers to review the Whistle Blowing policy and add something about ethics. 

Upon a vote it was unanimously

RESOLVED that;

1.    The Annual Governance Statement be approved

2.    The Leader and Head of Paid Service be recommended to sign the Annual Governance Statement so that it can be included within the statement of accounts