Issue - meetings

The Committee considered a report on the Council's Annual Governance Statement (AGS) for 2022-23, as required by the Accounts and Audit (England) Regulations 2015. The AGS would be included in the Council’s statement of accounts for 2022-23.

The AGS had set out in tabular format how the Council puts the principles of good governance, as described in the CIPFA/SOLACE framework, into practice along with recent achievements, developments, and areas for improvement.  

The AGS was underpinned by the Annual Opinion Report (April 2022 to March 2023) prepared by KPMG, who were the Council’s outsourced internal audit managers, which was considered by the Committee at its meeting held on 15 March 2023.

The Audit Opinion for 2022-23 on the overall adequacy and effectiveness of the Council’s framework of governance, risk management and control had been: ‘Significant assurance with minor improvementopportunities’. 

The AGS had also provided an update on governance issues reported in the 2021-22 AGS, together with the significant governance issues identified during the 2022-23. Where areas for further improvement had been identified, the necessary    actionwould be taken to implementchanges thatwould further develop and strengthen the Council’s governance framework.

Before the debate, the Chief Executive commented on the number of events that had occurred over the past 12 months which had demonstrated failures in governance at the Council.  He therefore announced in his capacity as Head of Paid Service that he, together with the Monitoring Officer and Interim Section 151 Officer, were commissioning, with the support of the Leader of the Council, an independent review of governance across the Council. The review would cover policies, practices, capacity, and culture within the organisation.  The outcome of the review, including findings and recommendations would be reported to this Committee in due course.

During the debate, the following points were raised:

·      The Chief Executive’s announcement of the wider review of governance across the Council was welcomed, and it was hoped that councillors, amongst many others, would be asked for their views.

·      In the context of the Chief Executive’s announcement, a committee member noted with some surprise that internal auditors were comfortable that the overall control environment at the Council was robust. 

·      It was noted that the audit process had failed to identify some of the issues and challenges around governance, and the Committee should perhaps be asking questions about the audit process and exercising greater scrutiny over it. The AGS had accurately summarised the audit findings.

Having considered the report, the Committee

RESOLVED:  That the Council’s Annual Governance Statement for 2022-23, as set out inAppendix 1 to the report submitted to the Committee be adopted and published alongside  theadopted statement ofaccounts for2022-23.

Reason:

To comply with the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015, the Council must prepare, approve, and publish an Annual Governance Statement.