Agenda item

The Committee were informed that in accordance with Regulation 6(1) of the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015 all relevant bodies were required to prepare an Annual Governance Statement (AGS).  The purpose of the AGS was to communicate to stakeholders the standards of corporate governance the organisation demonstrates and identify any significant issues that have arisen in year, and what was planned to address these issues.

Currently the Council had an Officer Governance Group which was chaired by the Deputy Chief Executive, Communities and Resources who reported to Corporate Management Team on outcomes from the group’s work.  This group considers a range of governance related matters, e.g. risk, decision-making, audit, etc., and escalates significant issues into the Corporate Leadership Team (CLT) for corporate action. The Group also oversaw the AGS and monitored progress on behalf of CLT.

There was a perpetual need for activities to become more outcome focused and ensure that they were efficient in terms of resource utilisation.  This raised challenges around balancing empowerment, compliance and governance.  In 2014/15, the Officer Governance Group had been created to form a network of Governance Champions.

During 2015/16, the role and approach of the officer Governance Group had been reviewed and refreshed.  Two meetings had been held to date: the September meeting had considered emerging governance issues and the updated 2015/16 Corporate Risk Register. Additionally they had considered whether there were any new emerging areas for possible recommendation to CLT for inclusion or status changes and concluded that there were none.  The Group had also reviewed the 2014/15 Annual Governance Statement and the progress made on addressing the highlighted significant governance issues.

At the September meeting, the group had also received the CIPFA/SOLACE consultation paper on ‘Delivering Good Governance in Local Government’.

The Public Sector Internal Audit Standards defined the Assurance Service as “an objective examination of evidence for the purpose of proving an independent assessment on governance, risk management and control processes for the organisation”.  Going forward, the oneSource internal audit service would adopt an assurance focus/approach and the reporting flowing from this would be the primary tool used by this Committee to ensure that it was properly informed on governance, risks and the internal control environment.

With the oneSource shared service and the establishment of innovative delivery models and an increased self-service culture, the revised CIPFA/SOLACE Delivering Good Governance in Local Government framework, when available, would be used to inform and strengthen the Council’s governance arrangements.

The Governance Group would also review and consider the future Risk Management Strategy and arrangements that would be undertaken post implementation of the new assurance service; until then the existing agreed Risk Management Strategy would remain in force.  The Strategy would be reported to the Audit Committee in 2016/17.

The significant issues raised in the 2014/15 Annual Governance Statement were identified as:

·         The Scheme of Delegation - Issues with the scheme of delegation were identified following the amendments to include oneSource

·         Declarations of Interest - There have been instances identified of failings by officers to comply with expectations regarding declarations.

·         Assurance - as a result of reduced capacity the organisation’s approach to ensuring compliance with policy and procedure had to shift.  Compliance issues had identified gaps in this assurance framework that needed to be addressed.

Officers informed the Committee that an update would be provided to the next meeting of the Committee covering the revised Framework for Delivering Good Governance in Local Government by CIPFA/SOLACE when this became available.

The Committee noted the report and the steps already taken to address these issues.