Agenda item

To inform the Audit Committee of the statutory requirements to produce an Annual Governance Statement for 2024/25 (AGS) and to provide a draft statement relating to the 2024/25 financial year for review and approval.

Mr Minesh Jani, Head of Audit and Risk Management, introduced the report.

The Committee heard:

·         The way the governance framework was set out was prescribed in the CIPFA Solace Code. This set out what good governance ought to look like in local authorities. The table in the report showed all the key principles of what the code required the Council to demonstrate. The Council had benchmarked itself against those principles. Where there was compliance to 100%, there was a link attached to evidence it. Whether there were issues, however significant, the Council had identified what they looked like. From that the report then crystallised the remaining significant matters and reported this in the paper. For those areas where the governance was in place, that would not be much detail, just a link to a document that set out where the Council was meeting those standards.

·         The section on ‘behaving with integrity’ was one that had been assessed as fully compliant.

·         In relation to handling complaints, when the Council did the appraisals, there were different levels of gaps in compliance with the CIPFA Solace Code. The six areas that had been identified were the most significant matters. There were other areas where the Council not as good as it could be. These were not regarded as the most significant and for these, there were other processes that applied. In general terms, there was reference to the fact that the Council was not very good at managing information and information governance. However, that was through the prism of responding to members inquiry and freedom of information requests. It was possible to attach complaints as part of that that appraisal. Part of the Council’s responsibility was to engage and respond to people who wanted information from the Council in a in a timely way and the Council could improve on this.

·         In response to a question around compliance with the statutory housing compliance standards, it was noted the Council had a significant governance issue. How the Council managed its housing portfolio was not where it should be at. The appropriate director for the service  had updated the Committee on where they had managed to improve some elements of the governance around the housing portfolio. This did not mean that further improvements could not be made.

·         There was a key control around how the Council let property. There was a process for this - choice based lettings - where applicants made an application for housing and they would be assessed in terms of priority. When their turn comes up (as they would be identified as the highest priority person), they would be allocated a house or a home of some type. The factors that went into selecting who was applicable may not extend to their antisocial behaviour, because this may not be known at the time the property was allocated. A person was allocated a property based on their priority. 

·         In response to a specific query, members were advised once an individual had been identified and taken had been action against them, the property would then be allocated to somebody else.

·         In relation to providing more context as to why a gap was present or provide an extent of the gap, the annual governance statement was meant to be a concise document. The reason had been presented in the way that it had been to the Committee was because the Council’s Local Code of Corporate Governance was not up to date until last year. It was important that the Committee had oversight of all of key components of governance on this occasion. However, from next year, the statement would be more succinct and audit cycle would provide the assurances around some of the other governance arrangements.

RESOLVED:

1.    The Audit Committee approve the draft 2024/25 AGS, attached at Appendix A of the report.

2.    That the Audit Committee notes the approval timescale and processes for the draft 2024/25 AGS.