Issue - meetings

The annual report was presented to members by Andrew Stokes under Regulation 6 (1) (a) of the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015, which required the Council to conduct a review each financial year of the effectiveness of its system of internal control and approve an Annual Governance Statement (AGS).

The AGS Action Plan was appended to the report and outlined progress against the required actions as at 31 December 2018. Completed actions were summarised as:-

·         The Council’s revised recruitment policy had been implemented and was available via the Intranet;

·         The district profile had been updated and included in the Ward Data area of the Intranet;

·         The revised Corporate Plan had been communicated to all staff through the Core Brief and ‘Keeping You Informed’ and was available on the Intranet;

·         Equality Impact Assessments had been integrated into the report writing module of Modern Gov.

Actions still being progressed were summarised as:-

·         Training for Managers in completion of the consultation section of committee reports was planned as part of the introduction of the report writing module of the Modern Gov system;

·         A system for embedding partnership risks and effectiveness in the performance management system had been designed and would be in place for 2019/20;

·         A revised Procurement Strategy was due for presentation during 2019 which would include reference and if deemed applicable defined processes in relation to Social Value;

·         The Scheme of Delegations would be updated following amendments to the management structure;

·         The Risk Management Strategy would be reviewed and formally approved and adopted by 28 February 2019;

·         Further work was ongoing to develop the approach to identifying and managing corporate fraud risk to ensure compliance with the Code of Practice on Managing the Risk of Fraud and Corruption (CIPFA 2014);

·         The next and final tranche of the transfer of services to AES (street cleansing and grounds maintenance) would take place in April 2019 – the governance arrangements would be subject to audit during 2019/20.

RESOLVED – That the report be NOTED.