Issue - meetings

The above report was presented to Members to provide feedback on the draft AGS to feed into the final statement to be submitted for approval at the July meeting of the Governance and Audit Committee.

It was stated that the AGS was a formal statement under the Accounts and Audit (England) Regulations 2011, which detailed the Council’s governance arrangements and issues for the previous year as an annual report of governance. It included a summary of the Governance Framework and identified areas where further action was required to achieve full assurance. The sources for developing the AGS were listed at point 2 of the report and the seven principles of good governance, which the Framework followed, were set out at point 3 of the report. Point 4 showed that the draft version of the AGS was available for review at Appendix one.

‘Issues Deemed Closed’ were listed at point 5 of the report.

In relation to 5.1 VI – Selective Licensing, Members expressed concerns that there was still a lot going on and that the ‘Selective Licensing’ should therefore remain in the AGS for monitoring and further scrutiny. Officers proposed that it may not be necessary to keep the items open for a whole year if the relevant issues were addressed before, proposing that a six months period may be sufficient.

Under ‘Issues to be Addressed’ a number of items for consideration were listed at point 6. Item 6.1 was highlighted due to significant changes to the DPA linked to the European General Data Protection Regulation coming into force in May 2018. An Action Plan and a Project Plan was in place to ensure compliance.

Item 6.1.4 Value for Money was highlighted stressing the need for appropriate improvement plans and benchmarking to create value for money culture.

Under item 6.1.7 – Development Management, the Chairman talked about a Member led audit of Planning querying whether it ought to be added to the AGS due to a number of planning queries having been received in relation to how it operates. Officers felt that this was possibly a duplication but Members wished to add this item for extra scrutiny.

In relation to point 5.1 I – Strategic and Spatial Planning, Members posed a question whether this would be influenced by the current national instabilities and also why Nottinghamshire authorities were singled out for co-operation in this area and whether we were looking elsewhere in the country as well.

In response to the first question, Officers felt that the current local plans should be followed until such time as any new regulations or guidance came out as an alternative and that the current instabilities should not have any major impact on the processes in place at this time.

In relation to the question as to why Nottinghamshire was chosen in particular, Officers confirmed that the main reasons were geographical, focusing on Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire authorities.

A further two questions were then raised in relation to point 6.1.2 – Political Governance - standards  ...  view the full minutes text for item 11