Decision details

Annual Governance Statement

Decision status: Recommendations Approved

Is Key decision?: No

Is subject to call in?: No

Decisions:

7.1     The Committee considered a report by the Director of Law and Assurance (copy appended to the signed minutes).

 

7.2     Mr Gauntlett, Senior Advisor, introduced the report and informed the Committee that the draft Statement set out the Council’s governance arrangements and the draft action plan set out a range of actions proposed to improve them.

 

7.3     The Committee made comments including those that follow. It:

 

        Was supportive of the draft Statement but asked for the summary of assurances in each section to be reviewed for consistency.

        Asked whether the corporate governance processes identified within the Statement should have recognised the problems in Children’s Services and the Fire and Rescue Service as found by the external inspections in recent months. It hoped that attention would be given to any other services with forthcoming external inspections, such as the Youth Offending Service.  The Leader of the Council felt that the problems identified had been systemic and that all members in their local and strategic roles should seek to gain a better understanding of the experiences of service users and should seek to streamline and join up information being presented to different committees. She gave an example of paragraph 43 on the embedding of sustainability, where the Chairman could usefully write to the appropriate Select Committee to highlight the information there.

        Hoped that consideration would be given to what appropriate external advice and service user voices were needed by select committees when scrutinising council services. The Director of Law and Assurance confirmed that this would be considered as part of the Governance Committee’s review of scrutiny in autumn 2019.

 

7.4     Resolved – That, subject to final revisions to improve consistency, the Annual Governance Statement 2018/19 be agreed and recommended for adoption through the signatures of the Leader of the Council and the Chief Executive.

Publication date: 30/08/2019

Date of decision: 22/07/2019

Decided at meeting: 22/07/2019 - Regulation, Audit and Accounts Committee

Accompanying Documents: