Agenda item

Governance, Risk and Compliance Officer (see recommendations)

The Governance, Risk and Compliance Officer introduced the report as circulated with the agenda.  The Annual Governance Statement (AGS) contained a Significant Issues Action Plan and this report summarised progress in relation to the three key issues of concern; business continuity, safeguarding children and vulnerable adults – training records and car parking.  Progress had been monitored and updated by the appropriate officer and reviewed by the Corporate Governance Group.  He talked through progress in relation to each of these issues, which included;

·         Business Continuity was a maturing process, to which there would be no conclusion but this was progressing well and would continue to be monitored by the South West Audit Partnership, as well as by Internal Audit. 

·         Safeguarding Children and Vulnerable Adults had been on the plan for over two years, given that guidelines and processes changed in-light of any major incident.  Since this report had been written. The Strategy and Engagement team had recently undertaken a self- assessment against the requirements of Section.11 of the Children Act 2004. The Corporate Governance Group (CGG) had reviewed the outcome of this self-assessment and the Corporate Governance Officer circulated a high level dashboard report indicating the rating and direction of travel.  In 2013 most of the actions were showing as amber, but in 2014, there were 3 ‘green’, with only 2 ‘amber’ actions remaining.  The Leisure and Culture Trust had adopted the Council’s policy but were ultimately responsible for assessing their own training needs and providing appropriate training and monitoring, internal auditors would consider the level of compliance with the policy requirements as part of their audit planning.  The s11 self-assessment would be undertaken annually by this council.  The Governance, Risk and Compliance Officer was of the opinion that this issue could now legitimately be removed from the action plan given the progress that had been made.

·         Whilst significant progress had been made in relation to the Car Parking issue, ongoing discussions centred around the need for a revised Car Parking Strategy.  The Director of Resources explained that a draft strategy would not be ready for February 2014 given the amount of work still required, mostly due to the fact that upcoming decisions relating to Boots Corner would prompt further questions regarding the location of parking.  The Head of Audit Cotswolds would circulate links to his previous reports and follow-up reports. 

A number of members of the committee voiced concern that training relating to the safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults was not being offered to elected members.  They felt that as part of the ward councillor role, many elected members would be visiting people in their homes and should be given the opportunity to attend training on how to report concerns.  They also felt that any such training should help members of this committee fulfil their duty in ensuring that the council is fulfilling its duty.  Members accepted that elected members could not be mandated by the council to attend training, or read the handbook/policy and as such there were no sanctions should members choose against it, but nonetheless, the committee members felt this should be made available.  Members discounted the suggestion by one member that DBS checks (formerly CRB checks) should be carried out on all members.  It was agreed that the issue should remain on the action plan until such a time as training had been arranged for elected members.  The Governance, Risk and Compliance Officer would request that the Partnership Team leader for safeguarding organise training for elected Members as soon as possible.

Upon a vote it was unanimously

RESOLVED that the Car parking issue on the Significant Issues Action Plan be closed and that the Business Continuity and Safeguarding Issues should remain open until the annual assurance assessment is considered again.