Agenda item

Bryan Parsons, Governance, Risk and Compliance Officer  - see recommendation(s)

The Governance, Risk and Compliance Officer introduced the report as circulated with the agenda. He explained that the council had a statutory duty to produce an Annual Governance Statement, based on the CIPFA model, which had to be approved as part of the annual statement of accounts. The committee needed to satisfy itself that the AGS for the 2014/15 financial year fairly reflected the arrangements within the council, and that the action plan would address the significant governance issues identified by the review. He noted that this AGS was somewhat shorter than in previous years in an effort to make it a more ‘high level’ document with less detail. He highlighted the Art Gallery and Museum as a significant issue which had been included. Members were being asked to approve the AGS for the Chief Executive and Leader of the Council, to sign.

The Head of Audit Cotswolds took the opportunity to update members on his AG&M report, which was scheduled to be considered by the committee on 15 July 2015. He explained that he had interviewed 15 people in total and because this had included the Chief Executive and Director of Corporate Resources at the council, the draft report had been sent to the Borough Solicitor and Monitoring Officer to check. In order to answer the question of why the overspend happened, the report included personal information and a discussion was required to establish how this should be presented; either a member briefing in advance of the meeting or on pink papers.

In response to a question, the Head of Audit Cotswolds assured members that processes were in place for the Audit Partnership to garner assurances from those responsible for auditing service/bodies to which the partnership did not have direct access (e.g. ICT at the Forest of Dean). Members felt that it would be useful to have a list of the audit arrangements for the various service/bodies listed at 13 c and d of the AGS (including the Cheltenham Development Task Force, Gloucestershire Airport and ICT). Officers would produce this as a briefing for the next meeting.

The Governance, Risk and Compliance Officer clarified that as a member of the Executive Board, the Section 151 Officer had the right to attend meetings but may only choose to do  this if there were something specific on the agenda, depending on workload. He would not be expected to attend every meeting.

Paragraph 9f of the AGS would be amended so that the g of Grant Thornton would be replaced with a capital letter and the final word ‘payment‘ would be replaced with the word ‘purchase’.

In relation to appendix 3, the Significant Issues Action Plan, he recommended that the first issue be closed, as it had moved on in respect of the way that it was being managed, and would be replaced with 3 other work streams. Deadlines for the completion of these work streams was yet to be agreed, though a work planning meeting in the next month would result in deadlines being set.

Safeguarding was an issue that had featured on the plan for the last 2 years and the difficulty with this was that the training records were being held in a number of areas. The Partnership Team Leader was satisfied that enough staff were being trained but she was still awaiting assurances from GOSS Learning and Development that training needs were automatically identified and recorded as part of the recruitment process. Audit committee requested that an update on the issue be brought to committee in September by the Partnership Team Leader and the GOSS Learning and Development Manager.

There were a couple of car parking projects in progress at the moment and these were anticipated for completion by September by which time an update would be presented to the committee by the manager responsible for the car parking projects.

The Purchase Order Management System issue had been added following the Grant Thornton AG&M report and the committee were advised that almost 80% of transactions were now supported by a purchase order, with the other 20% largely for grant payments. Internal Audit would check that the system was being followed. A progress update would be scheduled for 6 months from now (January 2016).

Upon a vote it was unanimously

RESOLVED that:

1. The Annual Governance Statement be approved for inclusion in the statement of accounts and;

2. The Leader and Chief Executive be recommended to sign the Annual Governance Statement.