Agenda item

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 of behaviour, specifically why this had been included as standards of behaviour were high, and in relation to 6.1.4 - Value for Money section, enquiring when those reviews were done previously.

In response to the Political arrangements query, Officers highlighted the newly adopted Code of Conduct agreed at the Annual Council, advising that training would need to be delivered to embed the new Conduct Code.

In relation to the Value for Money question, Officers advised that the Council’s processes were assessed both internally and externally looking at not only performance and finances as before but also at outcomes. The three dimensional approach was being tested with a number of pilots taking place at this time. The learning obtained from the pilots would then be rolled out over the next 12 months across the council with the focus being not only on saving money but also assessing the impact of saving money and ensuring outcomes.

The Director of Resources explained that all the different mechanisms and techniques used across the authority had been put together in the Value for Money Handbook – starting from budget processes, business planning through to business case development, through to procurement - to ensure that all those techniques were known and understood by team managers and applied in an appropriate way ensuring value for money as well as high performance. This approach ensured even better value for money then before and a better evidence base for it.

Members asked whether any issues had been considered but subsequently not included in this report. Officers responded that there were some other areas which went in front of the GCLT as possibilities, for example, the homelessness reduction bill, and that it was a corporate decision as to what was worthy of being included on the plan.

It was mentioned that page 56 of the report listed a number of items by which this review had been conducted.

Members further enquired whether the ‘closed items’ were ever re-tested, for example, a year later.

Councillor Bibb left the meeting at this point (7.15pm).

Officers responded that any issues in relation to the above would still be monitored and any issues would be picked up within the general governance infrastructure.

A member proposed that it may be useful to include a list of all items which were considered in any future reports.

On the basis of the above discussion it was:

RESOLVED that

(a)Selective Licensing be carried over onto the AGS Action Plan 16/17 in order that Prosperous Communities Committee could receive and consider an evaluation report on the scheme (expected in September 2017), and

(b) Development Management be included again on the AGS Action Plan 16/17 in order that Members could consider the findings of the Internal Audit report due in July 2017 and monitor progress against agreed actions to meet the recommendations made within the report.