Agenda item

The Committee were requested to view the Draft Annual Governance Statement which presented arrangements for governance across the board.

It was noted that improvement was needed.

Questions:

The Chair commented that 51 pages in total for the Annual Governance Statement was too large and needed to be reduced. The Chair also commented that the organisational framework was very busy and complex and was great for internal use but was a bit repetitive.

The Chair referred to page 106; 3.11 and asked how the Courageous values linked into the corporate risk register and that there was nothing wrong with risk and did the authority adapt a zero risk approach.

The Chair commented that the Risk appetite for 2019/20 showed the level of risk the authority was willing to take to deliver services and to deliver statutory duties.

It was confirmed that Cabinet would receive a presentation on the Risk Register and that information would be fed back to the Committee and collectively this would form a formal risk appetite for 2019/20.

The Chair commented that due to the number of staff let go was there a reliance on the IT system. It was also commented that controls were maybe accepted within the system, would something get miscoded and would less cost override this.

In relation to the Audit office, if there was a saving being made on staff levels and no errors were wanted from officers, were the Cabinet thinking of these issues and considering how Audit considered risk.

At present policies were silent, and maybe the risk strategy should have discussions on looking at the risk appetite. Was it possible to relax financial controls?

The Chair stated that the Committee would look to review the risk appetite that would come back to the Committee and the issue was raised before but comments were not considered previously. Cabinet had been informed that the Audit Committee would be made aware and it was clear that more work needed to be done on risk appetite and this was overdue.

On page 117 of the report the Chair questioned whether it was worth putting in the Head of Internal Auditor as the author of the Annual Governance Statement. 

On page 120; 5.6 the Chair referred to the two disclosures made in 2018/19 under the whistle blowing policy and whether it was effectively used? Chief Internal Auditor confirmed that internal audit did not get involved in this. 

Also on page 120; 5.10 the Chair commented on the number of complaints regarding Newport that had increased and did this infer Newport City Council rather than the city itself and this needed to be clarified. It was confirmed as ‘city’ by the Chief Internal Auditor.

It was noted that the Audit Committee had the power to call in Heads of Services as the Head of Streetscene was called in 2018.

The Chair commented that the Letter response from the Chief Executive later on in the agenda needed to be referenced in the Annual Governance Statement.

The Chair made reference to paragraph 10.7 there were two bullet points in relation to Newport performing 1.9 percentage points above Welsh average and the Chair questioned whether this average was good or bad and this needed to be clarified.

A Member of the Committee commented on the excellent performance by Newport Primary schools. It was confirmed that the information was taken from the website Data Cymru which enabled people to compare performances with other local authorities.