Issue - meetings

To receive the Annual Governance Statement for 2023/24.

The Cabinet Member: Homes & Enforcement presented the Annual Governance Statement 2023/24.

Under the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015, the Council was required to produce an Annual Governance Statement.

The Annual Governance Statement and the Local Code of Good Governance outlined that the Council had a robust governance framework in place which would be continually reviewed and maintained to demonstrate good corporate governance.

The 2023/24 Annual Governance Statement set out the adherence to the Council’s governance arrangements during the period 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024 and measured their effectiveness by undertaking regular internal quality monitoring across the services, peer reviews, benchmarking and external audits.  Senior Management Team complete questionnaires with the Internal Audit Team collating the responses and devising an action plan.  Less actions were highlighted during the reporting period than in previous years.

The Council has continued to make savings.  The reduction in resources was challenging and impacted on recruitment and this had led to some single points of failure.  Mitigation measures had been put in place where required.   Staff were encouraged to undertake essential learning and training and where essential learning had not been completed, this was reported to the Senior Management Team.

The Leader of the Conservative Group considered that the Council had many statutory and internal tools and procedures to ensure effective governance.  He suggested that the evidence should not be based on assumptions and reasonableness or left to chance.  It was reassuring that External Audit looked at the governance arrangements and it was asked when it was expected that the historical audits be signed off.

The Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group confirmed that the Auditors had given the Council a clean bill of health for 2022/23 at the recent Audit Committee, together with the 2021/22 Audit.  It was expected that an unqualified opinion would be received shortly but that external audit was out of the Council’s control.

The Leader expressed that there was a huge challenge around audits being signed off nationally and the government was engaging with the audit sector to ensure capacity was in place.  The Secretary of State was looking to increase capacity to ensure the backlogs within Councils were cleared.  The Leader confirmed that the Audit for 2021/22 and 2022/23 had now been signed off which put the Council in a small number of Councils within the UK to achieve this.

RESOLVED – that:

a)    the Annual Governance Statement 2023/24 be approved; and

b)   the report be noted.