Agenda item

Minutes:

Members considered a report on the progress of the Audit partner against the 2017/18 annual programmes agreed by the Governance and Audit Committee in March 2017.

 

The Principal Auditor highlighted several points from the draft audit, listed below:

 

·         The ICT patch management audit had been moved back to Quarter 4;

 

·         There were currently two overdue actions, one of which was high priority.  This related to the ICT infrastructure audit;

 

·         The amount of overdue audit recommendations was low;

 

·         The performance details against targets were highlighted at paragraph 12 of the report;

 

Following this update, Independent Members expressed concern about the ‘red’ risks listed in the report, and that the Governance and Audit Committee was not being used more proactively in certain circumstances; in particular, they felt that their role as independents was being bypassed.  Overall though, they wanted to make it clear that West Lindsey District Council (WLDC) and its Executive have the absolute right to determine the direction of the Council, but on the big decisions more questions for due diligence should be asked by the Governance and Audit Committee.

 

The Director of Resources responded and said that management had always tried to be open and honest about risks.  Part of the red risks in the report were around the handover between the previous Commercial Director and the former Chief Executive.  The subsequent departure of the Chief Executive had made it hard to provide evidence for that six month period.

 

The Chairman added his thanks to the Independent Members for correspondence sent to himself prior to Christmas.  He outlined that the Governance and Audit Committee’s primary role was retrospective; it currently could not be proactive in decision making.  However, although the Committee was retrospective on the whole, it was proactive in taking reviews.  In addition, decisions taken by the Council are guided by and set out by the Constitution.

 

Further points from the Committee were:

 

·         Mr Walton had concerns that WLDC did not have the structure or process in place to become an entrepreneurial authority;

 

·         The ‘Entrepreneurial Board’ mentioned in the report had been headed by the former Chief Executive and was an officer group;

 

·         In the next iteration of the medium term financial plan there will be an integration of commercial activity within existing project delivery in order that it can be tracked as one activity and not two;

 

·         It was important that problems from the past are not perpetuated;

 

·         It was right that Governance and Audit drive their own agenda and are able to appropriately challenge decisions;

 

·         New guidance was set to be released on support for Audit committees and can be shared with Members when it becomes available;

 

·         The Head of Audit and Risk Management at Lincolnshire County Council stressed that questioning for audit committees should concentrate on the ‘how’, rather than the ‘why’, as the committee was in existence to help keep good governance.  This good governance did not have to be confined to the formal processes of the committee, and a refresher on insight could be in order;

 

·         As a third line of assurance, if sections of the commercial strategy are not functioning as they should be, audit can bring this to the attention of the Governance and Audit Committee.  Part of the formal follow up process was to keep an eye on areas that have lower assurance;

 

The Chairman then gave his thanks to the auditors for their report.

 

Two new recommendations were moved and seconded as follows:

 

(1)  The Director of Economic Development & Commercial be invited to the next meeting of the Governance and Audit Committee;

(2)  A workshop on commercial governance to be run by either the Director of Resources or the Director of Economic Development & Commercial be set up;

 

and a recorded vote was taken.

 

For: Councillors G McNeill, Bibb, J McNeill, Smith and White.

 

Against: None.

 

Abstained: None.

 

A total of 5 votes for, with no-one voting against or abstaining. 

 

RESOLVED that:

 

(1)   The Director of Economic Development & Commercial be invited to the next meeting of the Governance and Audit Committee;

(2)  A workshop on commercial governance to be run by either the Director of Resources or the Director of Economic Development & Commercial be set up.

 

 

 

 

 

Supporting documents: