Issue - meetings

To consider the Annual Governance Statement 2018-19.

The Assistant Director Governance presented the Annual Governance Statement (AGS).

During the discussion of this item the following points were made:

·         The AGS formed part of the Financial Statements and would be signed by the Leader and the Chief Executive.

·         The process had identified five exceptions.  Andrew Moulton proposed that the Committee be updated on these at the November Committee meeting.

·         Helen Thompson requested that the Head of Internal Audit’s Opinion be included in the AGS if required.

·         With regards to improvements identified in Corporate Services, Councillor Burgess asked how overview and scrutiny processes had been strengthened.  Andrew Moulton commented that from an officer perspective there had been a lot of work undertaken on improving overview and scrutiny.

·         Councillor Burgess also asked how a review of care governance was considered an improvement.  Andrew Moulton referred to the work of the Strategy and Commissioning Team to support Children’s and Adult’s Services.

·         Councillor Shepherd-Dubey asked for an update on the fine tuning of the SDL governance and management arrangements and was informed that she would receive a written response.

RESOLVED: That the Committee approve the Annual Governance Statement on behalf of the Council prior to it being included in the final Statement of Accounts.