Agenda item

(To receive a report from Lucy Pledge, Audit and Risk Manager, which provides the Committee with the opportunity to review the contents of the draft Annual Governance Statement)

Consideration was given to a report which provided the Committee with an opportunity to consider and approve the Annual Governance Statement (AGS) 2017.  It was reported that the Council was required to reflect on how well the Council's governance framework had operated during the year and identify any governance issues that needed to be drawn to the attention of Lincolnshire's residents.

Members were advised that good governance underpinned everything that the Council did and how services were delivered often came under close scrutiny.  A 'good' Annual Governance Statement was an open and honest self-assessment of how well the Council had run its business across all activities with a clear statement of the actions being taken or required to address any areas of concern.

The Committee was provided with the opportunity to ask questions to the officers present in relation to the information contained within the report and some of the points raised during discussion included the following:

·         Work had been carried out to make the AGS more readable in plain English.

·         Several issues had been identified as needing a watching brief, but they were not significant issues.

·         In relation to the overall assurance status for 2015/16 and 2016/17 (as listed on p.105 of the report) it was queried whether a lower level of assurance would be offered for 2016/17, and members were advised that this was correct.

·         The effective implementation of Agresso was given very low assurance last year, but improvements were being seen in some areas but not others.

·         Each risk was very different in its nature and control regime.  For example, safeguarding would always be an amber risk, but there was substantial assurance that risks were being managed and controls were in place.  It was suggested whether including a link to the risk register in the Statement would be helpful, and members agreed that it would be.

·         It was queried whether the Effective implementation of Agresso system – finance and HR systems risk could be separated out as the problems in the HR systems were being hidden by the improvements on the finance side.

·         It was noted that the resilience and business continuity was an emerging risk and so had a watching brief.  It was commented whether, in light of events which had happened in London in recent months, there was a need for some assurance that any lessons learned were being taken account of.  Members were advised that checks were being made on all buildings and schools, and so far no safety issues had been identified.  It was also reported that the Emergency Planning Team had been instructed to look at the lessons learned following the Grenfell Tower fire, and Lincolnshire's emergency planning approach was far ahead of what had been seen in some other areas.  it was queried whether, as this was now a national issue whether it needed to be include in the Statement, however, members were advised that officers would prefer to review this in due course as there would be some very significant issues for some authorities.

·         It was clarified that the section in relation to Managing Our Resources (Value for Money) would need to be completed before the external auditors could issue their opinion.

RESOLVED

1.    That the contents of the Annual Governance Statement 2017 accurately reflected how the Council was run

2.    That the Statement included the significant governance issues/key risks the Committee would expect to be published

3.    That officers look into whether the risk in relation to the Effective Implementation of Agresso system – Finance and HR systems could be separated to reflect the improvements in the finance systems.