Issue - meetings

To present the Committee with the Annual Governance Statement for 2019/20, update the Committee on progress against the Action Plan agreed in June 2019 and to make recommendations for further actions arising from the contents of this report.

The  Committee received a report on the Annual Governance Statement for 2019/20.

The statement provided an account of the processes and systems which gave assurance of the Councils discharge of responsibilities.

As in previous years the statement is based on 7 CIPFA principles of good governance, as detailed in the report.

An Action Plan had been drawn up to address the issues highlighted in the Annual Governance Statement and was attached as Appendix 2 to the Annual Governance Statement.

An inadequate rating had been given to information governance as part of their audit. The Information Commissioner had recently undertaken an audit which had been successful in the three areas found in the report, which were FOI arrangements, governance arrangements and information security arrangements were deemed to be reasonable in these three areas, a desk top review would be taken in the next 6 months.

Next years Annual Governance Statement would look at the arrangements and response during the Covid -19 pandemic.

The Borough Solicitor had given assurance for the internal controls issue, as he was looking at the structures rather than the outcomes.

The LGA were due to publish a model code of conduct shortly which could impact the Councils code of conduct, and a review of the code of conduct could occur as a result of this.

There was still work to be done around business continuity, which would need to be expanded on due to Covid-19.

Possible dissolution of Downshire Homes could result in a number of actions that the council may need to undertake as the shareholders.

A consensual audit on GDPR had taken place, based on the council’s compliance which would include both the data protection and GDPR provisions.

As a result of the Member’s comments and questions, the following points were made:

·        The outcomes were just as important as the process. The process needed to be focused on efficient outcomes.

·        The Borough Solicitor had worked within the CIPFA code and principles, there was an overlap with the Audit Assurance report which worked on a different methodology to the Annual Governance Statement.

·        Code of Conduct draft model code was asking for comments, prior to the final document being submitted.

·        The code of conduct working group would look at the model code of conduct and would also review the Council’s code of conduct.

·        There was a code of conduct working group had been set up at Annual Council.

·        The Joint Venture would be made refence to in next years Annual Governance Statement and the process undertaken.

·        At the next review of the risk register the Joint Venture could be considered.

RESOLVED that the draft Annual Governance Statement (“AGS”) and Action plan appended to this report be approved.