The Committee resolved to note the significant strategic risks and issues highlighted in the report.
The Committee received a report from Terry Collier, Deputy Chief Executive on the Corporate Risk Register (Corporate Risk Management) which set out the significant strategic risks to the Council in delivering its priorities. Further refinements continued to be made to the refreshed format of the Corporate Risk Register and some of the technical issues had been resolved since the last Committee. The key headlines and updates to the broad risk categories since the last Audit Committee were highlighted which incorporated feedback from members.
The Committee raised that they had experienced difficulty in understanding the Risk Scoring Matrix in Appendix B and what the numbers represented. The Deputy Chief Executive confirmed he will relay this feedback to Lee O’Neil to consider making this section more clear in the next update to the register.
The Independent Member asked whether when drafting the Corporate Risk Register in future we could also attach the latest version of the Investment Assets Register which was produced in response to the Public Interest Report as part of the action plan, for transparency purposes. More broadly the Independent member also identified it would be beneficial for this committee to have a running record of actions discussed by this Committee to be informed of their status in an action tracker format. The Deputy Chief Executive responded that he would liaise with the Group Head Assets who was responsible for maintaining the Investment Assets Register on the feasibility of the initial request. The Deputy Chief Executive would also explore the second suggestion.
The Committee observed that a number of risk categories were still rated red and queried whether officers were clear on the criteria and actions in place to improve this scoring. The Deputy Chief Executive confirmed that relevant officers were aware of the criteria to improve risk rating scores for their categories and that this was detailed in the register within the control actions, mitigating actions and future actions sections for each category.
The Committee resolved to consider the significant strategic risks and issues highlighted in this report and present these to the Corporate Policy and Resources Committee, ensuring continued wider reporting of the Corporate Risk Register and actions across other Committees.