Issue - meetings

To consider the draft Annual Governance Statement and endorse the improvement actions identified in the statement.

The Committee received a report from Terry Collier, Deputy Chief Executive on the Annual Governance Statement 2023-24. There was a statutory duty to undertake an Annual Governance Statement (AGS), reviewing risks and the appropriateness of controls and mitigations. The statement was also required to be included by Councils in their Statement of Accounts, which will be reviewed by our external auditors, Grant Thornton.

The Committee observed that the Annual Governance statement omitted a link to the LGA Corporate Peer Challenge Follow up Report which would be helpful to include alongside the original LGA feedback report for full context. The Deputy Chief Executive agreed to add a link to the follow up report.

The Committee agreed that as the Annual Governance Statement and draft statement of accounts were subject to final review by our external auditors, they resolved to amend the recommendation to ‘endorse’ the Annual Governance Statement rather than approve it.

The Committee suggested that as there was a significant amount of overlap between Audit reports, it would be useful to formulate a master register of all recommendations which linked to individual reports. The Deputy Chief Executive agreed this may provide a useful insight to the Committee and would explore this suggestion.

The Committee resolved to endorse the draft Annual Governance Statement and endorse the improvement actions identified in the statement.