Agenda item

The Committee noted that there had been some non-compliance issues within the Council’s Housing Service, which had led to a lack of governance around contract management, people management and financial controls. The Committee considered a report on a governance review in respect of the Housing service to ascertain how such failures had arisen, to make recommendations to provide a more robust governance framework and an action plan to provide assurance of compliance going forward.

The Monitoring Officer reported that over the past three months, a significant amount of work had been undertaken by a number of officers in respect of various work streams, details of which were set out in the appendix to the report.  Each of the work streams was being monitored via the governance of a newly established strategic project group, comprising of the relevant Director and Head of Service, two of the statutory officers and other specialist officers across the Council.

It was now proposed to establish a further work stream, which would be an internal governance review team, to look at exactly how the Council had got into this position and to make recommendations and an action plan for implementation going forward, so that the Council could be assured that there could be no recurrence of these failures.

The Committee noted that the two existing workstreams were the external investigation team, and the strategic project group.  The new internal governance team would report into a strategic project board comprising the Council's three statutory officers, the relevant director, and also the Leader of the Council and the Chairman of this Committee.  The board would then, in due course, report back to this Committee and ultimately to Full Council with their findings.  At this stage, the Committee was simply being asked to note the report and the work that was ongoing and the framework that had been put in place, and to receive a further report back from the Strategic Project Board in approximately six months, or sooner if that was feasible.

During the debate the Committee heard the following comments:

·      Concerns regarding lack of transparency and public scrutiny, with the first progress report coming a full year after the governance failures had been discovered.  The magnitude of the sums involved demanded immediate public scrutiny. In response to a suggestion that the monthly reports being prepared should be made public, the Monitoring Officer reassured the Committee that transparency was at the heart of the proposals contained in the report which would result ultimately in a report back to this Committee and to full Council at a point when there were some findings to be shared with members. However, there were clearly some sensitivities around this piece of work and there would be some information being fed back to the Project Board, particularly from the external investigation team, which would be sensitive and confidential at this stage and could jeopardise the Council's longer-term position of trying to recover any financial losses that may have been incurred.

·      In response to concerns over the full cost of the investigation (up to £350,000), the Monitoring Officer indicated that this figure was at the upper end of the anticipated overall cost of what was a very complex piece of work, pulling together many strands requiring full and independent investigation into the various governance issues around the housing services.

·      It was very likely that there would be an interrelationship between this governance review and the wider governance review announced by the Chief Executive earlier in the meeting, and the outcome and recommendations of the governance review in respect of the housing service would feed into the wider governance review.

·      In response to a query as to how an issue that was ring-fenced in the Housing Revenue Account had a financial impact on the General Fund, the Committee noted that officers were cognisant of that issue and gave assurance that nothing would be charged to the General Fund in relation to this matter if it should properly be charged to the HRA.

·      Concerns over the involvement in the Strategic Project Board of the Leader of the Council, who had been the Lead Councillor for housing at the time the governance failures had occurred.   Further concerns were expressed that the Strategic Project Board was not a cross party Board and chaired by an opposition group member.

·      The proposed Strategic Project Board would involve councillors based on their role, not on their political party affiliation, and officers whose role is to serve the Council, including councillors of all parties.  It was noted that all Councillors had received a confidential briefing on this matter and political group leaders had also been updated periodically. Bearing in mind the complexity of housing maintenance contracts involving many separate jobs on hundreds of houses, it was no surprise that it had taken time to understand the situation and put in place actions to ensure the housing team was able to able to function going forward and to prioritise the safety of tenants.

·      In response to concerns over the time taken to set up this governance review, its complicated structure, and the proposed frequency of reports back to this Committee, the Monitoring Officer stated that a significant amount of work had already been undertaken in respect of the investigation, and the Strategic Project Group had been in place since early September and had met on a weekly basis with progress being made in respect of several workstreams.  When the matter first came to light, officers had prioritised actions that needed to be taken to stop any wrongdoing that was ongoing at the time and dealing with various legal and contractual issues, as well as gathering evidence.

·       Welcome candid report acknowledging that anything involving contractors and building contracts was complex, and the matter would not be resolved very quickly, but would also welcome more frequent feedback to the Committee even if such feedback was given verbally whilst recognising the sensitivities.

·       In response to a request that the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Council reconsider the membership of the Strategic Project Board, the Deputy Leader indicated that he would discuss this with the Leader, the Monitoring Officer, and the Chief Executive, but acknowledged that whilst there was a desire to be as transparent as possible, information previously given in confidence to all councillors in respect of this matter had been disclosed to the press.

The Committee

RESOLVED:  That the contents of the report be noted and that a report from the Strategic Project Board be submitted to the Committee in approximately six months’ time.

Reasons:

To ensure that the Committee has oversight of this matter by providing an independent and high-level focus on the audit, assurance and reporting arrangements that underpin good governance and financial standards.  The Committee’s terms of reference include its role in considering the Council’s arrangements for corporate governance and recommending to the Council any action necessary to ensure compliance with best practice.