7 Annual Governance Statement PDF 213 KB
To present the Committee with the Annual Governance Statement for 2018/19, update the Committee on progress against the Action Plan agreed in June 2018 and to make recommendations for further actions arising from the report.
Additional documents:
Minutes:
Sanjay Prashar, Borough Solicitor, attended the Committee and presented a summary of the Annual Governance Statement for 2018/19.
Members were directed to the Executive Summary which reported on the effectiveness of the Council’s governance arrangements during 2018/19 and took note of a diagram of the overview of the Council’s governance framework.
The statement included a summary of assurance for each of the seven principles on which the Statement was based, which were:
The progress to address 3 important governance improvement areas from 2017/18 were highlighted:
PROPOSED ACTION: Continue to take a proactive approach to counter fraud and whistle blowing, promoting the Council’s policies and focussing internal audit activity on areas of high risk.
UPDATE: Fraud Newsletters now produced regularly. Seven fraud awareness training Sessions open to all staff already held in quarter 4 of 2018/19.
PROPOSED ACTION: Review by Standards Framework Working Group of the efficacy of introducing specific requirements in the Councillor Code of Conduct relating to the use of social media.
UPDATE: Social Media Training including in Member Development Programme agreed by Member Development Charter Working Group.
PROPOSED ACTION: To undertake a review of current compliance with GDPR and take any remedial steps as necessary (6 month post implementation review).
UPDATE: Compliance activity undertaken by DPO and IMG against action plan.
Update provided to CMT in December 2018.
Sanjay advised the Committee that the key action points – and their owner – for the year ahead were:
In response to questions from Members, Sanjay Prashar, Borough Solicitor advised the Committee that: