Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from the Chair, Councillor Phil Bellamy, and Councillors Stephen Hives and Vanessa King, and from Murray Litvak.

In accordance with the local Code of Conduct, a councillor is required to disclose at the meeting any disclosable pecuniary interest (DPI) that they may have in respect of any matter for consideration on this agenda.  Any councillor with a DPI must notparticipate in any discussion or vote regarding that matter and they must also withdraw from the meeting immediately before consideration of the matter.

If that DPI has not been registered, you must notify the Monitoring Officer of the details of the DPI within 28 days of the date of the meeting.

Councillors are further invited to disclose any non-pecuniary interest which may be relevant to any matter on this agenda, in the interests of transparency, and to confirm that it will not affect their objectivity in relation to that matter.

There were no disclosures of interest.

To confirm the minutes of the meetings of the Corporate Governance and Standards Committee held on 6 June and 1 July 2024.

Upon the minutes of the meeting held on 6 June and the special meeting held on 1 July 2024 being put to the Committee for confirmation as a correct record, a committee member raised a concern over a point raised in Minute CGS23 - Proposed New Contract Procedure Rules. 

The Committee was asked if it would be happy if there was a note in the minutes of this meeting, taking into account the point made by the committee member. That member also commented on whether matters arising from the minutes should be included on future agendas, to enable the committee to keep track of matters.  The person presiding indicated that Democratic Services and members of the Executive would consider that suggestion.

The Committee noted that the decision and action tracker had been introduced to monitor progress against the decisions and actions that the Committee had agreed, which would be kept up to date for each meeting.  When decisions/actions were reported as being ‘completed’, the Committee would be asked to agree to remove these items from the tracker.  

In relation to the following action associated with the report on the Update on the Revised, Joint Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy, and associated Action Plan considered by the Committee on 18 January 2024:

(a)     “To meet with the vice-chairman of the Committee to discuss how the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan could be made more ambitious”.

it was noted that a meeting with the vice-chairman had been scheduled for the following week.  The Committee also welcomed the information provided in the two appendices to the report on actions arising from consideration of the internal audit progress report (February 2024) and the Month 10 Financial Monitoring Report 2023-24.

The Committee

RESOLVED: That the decision and action tracker be noted and that the actions reported as being completed be removed from the table.

The Chairman to respond to any questions received from members of the public in accordance with Council Procedure Rule 11. The deadline for receipt of questions is 5pm on Friday 19 July 2024

There were no questions from the public.

The Chairman to respond to any questions received from Members in accordance with Council Procedure Rule 12. The deadline for receipt of questions is 5pm on Friday 19 July 2024.

There were no questions from Members.

The Committee considered an update report on the Council’s corporate risks for Q4 for 2023-24. Since the Committee last received an update on risk management, the corporate risk register had been reviewed and refreshed in accordance with past Committee feedback and actions arising from the Council’s Corporate Improvement Plan.  Further to this, the report had also updated the Committee on the development of a new risk management strategy and methodology for the Council.

The Lead Councillor for Community and Organisational Development, Councillor Carla Morson commented that there would be briefings on the new strategy which would be delivered both by officers, and external partners at Zurich.

During the debate, the following comments and observations were made by the Committee:

·      Welcome the new format for the document, which was much clearer in showing how the Council identified and evaluated risks.

·      In view of the Three Lines of Defence Methodology used in risk management, there was no reference in the document to the role of internal and external audit as a mitigating factor to ensure independent, objective assurance.

·      Whilst the removal of CR18 (inability to meet statutory duties in timeframes) on the basis that it was too non-specific was accepted, the report had stated that FoI risks could be considered within another risk category but did not acknowledge that there were other examples of failures to meet important statutory duties such as external audit.

·      Welcome the removal of certain non-strategic risks to service risk registers.

·      In response to a query in respect of CR2 (Financial Sustainability) as to whether the red RAG rating was appropriate notwithstanding the positive direction of travel, the Joint Strategic Director of Finance advised that it might be possible to review the RAG rating in the next quarter given the positive outturn position and the VAT refund for example; however, he remained concerned about ongoing uncertainty as regards future long-term funding settlements.

·      In response to a question, the Corporate Strategy and Performance Manager confirmed that whilst the Council had not been affected by the recent CrowdStrike outage, there were always learning points around cyber security and business continuity incidents such as these.  The Council worked closely with government agencies such as the National Cyber Security Centre and it had multilayered defences in place to control and mitigate risks.  The Corporate Strategy and Performance Manager indicated that he would ask the Lead Specialist – ICT to provide further assurance to the Committee in respect of any learning points arising from the recent CrowdStrike outage.

·      In response to a request for an explanation as to the reason for CR5 (Failure to make lawful decisions and follow governance) increasing and the absence of any commentary on this from the Leader or Chief Executive in the report, the Corporate Strategy and Performance Manager indicated that the direction of travel referred to when the risk was last reported to the Committee in November 2023 and, since then, the risk had been reviewed in the previous month. The Monitoring Officer had identified significant  ...  view the full minutes text for item CGS31

The Committee considered the Annual Internal Audit Report & Opinion which provided a summary of audit work that had been undertaken during 2023-24 in order to obtain all information and explanations considered necessary to provide sufficient assurance that the control environment was both reasonable and effective.  The Committee noted that whilst no assurance could ever be absolute, on the basis of the audit work completed, it was the Chief Internal Auditor’s opinion that the Council’s framework of governance, risk management and control was ‘limited’.

It was acknowledged that the Council had faced significant challenges over the past year and the recent improvements put in place following receipt of the two SOLACE reports would help to strengthen the Council's governance, risk and control arrangements.

The Committee noted the pie chart in the report showing outcomes from internal audit reviews that had been reported to the Committee throughout the year and summarising the assurance opinions as being 45% ‘reasonable’ and 55% ‘limited’.  The Chief Internal Auditor had indicated that in relation to the ‘limited’ assurance reviews on the key financial systems, discussions had been held with the Strategic Director of Finance with regard to some detailed follow up work as part of the Quarter 4 plan on the implementation of the management actions arising from those audits.

The Strategic Director of Finance commented that the ‘limited’ assurance finding had been expected, but the most important aspect was the progress being made in respect of addressing the issues around the Council’s governance and internal controls and indicated that he expected some really significant improvements going forwards.

In debating this item, the Committee raised the following points:

·      Welcomed the detailed and meaningful audits carried out over the past year by Southern Internal Audit Partnership.

·      Noted that the underlying systems used for financial monitoring were still not where we would like them to be.  The Strategic Director of Finance was asked to comment on corrective actions being taken to address the IT and technical systems supporting financial monitoring and the timeframes around them.  In response the Director confirmed that the Council was receiving support from Unit 4 in respect of the review of the accounting side of Business World with a report due in the next month, which would enable an action plan to be drawn up to move things forward.  It was noted that an update on this would be reported back to members of this Committee.

·      There had been insufficient discussion around the control environment given that the internal audit work during the year had found that there had been a limited control environment in place across the majority of review areas, particularly around financial controls. Concern was expressed regarding control account reconciliation and management. The risk CR11 (recruitment and retention of staff) highlighted in the previous report was relevant in the context of the finance team. In response to a request for an update on the recruitment position and to highlight specific areas where good progress was being made, the Strategic Director of  ...  view the full minutes text for item CGS32

The Committee considered its updated 12 month rolling work programme.  It was noted that the six-monthly monitoring report on S.106 Contributions had been listed in the work programme for both the September and November meetings.  The Committee expected to see the report at its next meeting on 26 September, with an indication as to the frequency of future reports.

The Committee also felt that, in consultation with the chairman, an external audit update should be submitted to the next meeting on 26 September 2024.

The Committee

RESOLVED: That, subject to the above comments, the updated 12 month rolling work programme, as set out in Appendix 1 to the report submitted to the Committee, be approved.

Reason:

To allow the Committee to maintain and update its work programme.

The Committee is invited to consider passing the following resolution:

“That in accordance with Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the Committee agrees:

(1)  That the public be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the following matter (agenda item 11) on the grounds that it is likely, in view of the nature of the business to be transacted or the nature of the proceedings, that if members of the public were present during the item, there would be disclosure to them of exempt information (as defined by Section 100I of the Act) of the description specified in paragraph 2 of the revised Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972: Information which is likely to reveal the identity of an individual.

(2)  That the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.”

The Committee

RESOLVED: That in accordance with Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972:

(1)    the public be excluded from the meeting during consideration of agenda item 11 on the grounds that it was likely, in view of the nature of the business to be transacted or the nature of the proceedings, that if members of the public were present during consideration of the item, there would be disclosure to them of exempt information (as defined by Section 100I of the Act) of the description specified in paragraph 2 of the revised Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972, which was  Information which was likely to reveal the identity of an individual.

(2)    the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighed the public interest in disclosing the information.

The Committee considered a report on an investigation into an allegation of malpractice or wrongdoing connected to Guildford Borough Council’s award of contracts to one supplier that had occurred in 2016. There had been a suggestion of non-delivery under such contracts. The allegation had been made under the Council’s Whistleblowing Policy that was reviewed, updated and approved by the Executive in January 2024. 

The Committee welcomed the investigation which had taken place promptly after the Whistleblower had come forward. It was noted that there had been no Procurement Team in place at the time the alleged wrongdoing had taken place. However, housing and legal records dating back some eight years had been examined and no evidence of malpractice could be identified in regard to the allegation. Members of the Committee would have preferred to have seen more detail in terms of the timelines of the investigation and this was noted in regard to any future investigations.

Overall, the Committee found that the Whistleblowing Policy had provided a reassurance for those with concerns to come forward. The Leader of the Council expressed gratitude to the Whistleblower for coming forward and noted the journey the Council was on to address longstanding issues, improve transparency and provide an open cultural environment for staff.