Agenda item

The next item the Leader presented was an update of the Council’s Corporate Risk Register for the end of Quarter one (1 April 2022 to 30 June 2022).

Cabinet members were asked to consider the contents of this report and continued the monitoring of these risks and the actions being taken to address the risks identified.

The Council’s Risk Management Policy and Corporate Risk Register enabled this administration and officers to effectively identify, manage and monitor those risks which could prevent us from achieving our strategic priorities and to undertake our statutory duties as a local authority.

The Quarter One Risk Report would also be presented to the Council’s Governance and Audit Committee at the end of September 2022 to review the Council’s risk management process and governance arrangements.

At the end of quarter one the Council had 44 risks recorded across the Council’s eight service areas.

Those risks that were deemed to pose the most significant risk in the delivery of the Council’s Corporate Plan and services were escalated to the Council’s Corporate Risk Register for monitoring.
 

At the end of quarter three 16 risks were recorded in the Corporate Risk Register.

·        Eight Severe Risks (15 to 25);

·        Eight Major Risks (seven to 14);

In comparison to quarter four, there were no new and/or escalated risks and no risks were closed.

Fourteen risks remained at the same score as quarter 4 2021/22.

One risk score increased and one risk score decreased in the Corporate Risk Register.

There was a change in Direction of Risk Score.

Balancing the Council’s Medium-Term Budget (Risk score increased from nine to 12) - The Medium-Term Financial Plan was recently updated for the first time since the 2022/23 revenue budget was set.
 

Due to the current inflationary crisis, it was evident that cost pressures would increase substantially in comparison with the original assumptions.

Costs such as pay, energy and commissioned services were all forecasted to increase in price significantly. In addition, services identified pressures in a number of areas, especially those connected with demand and capacity within services.

The funding assumptions remained largely unchanged and, therefore, there was the potential for a significant budget gap.

This budget gap would be very challenging to address, especially in light of the level of savings that have already been identified and achieved in previous years. 

Covid-19 Pandemic (Risk score decreased from 16 to 12) - While Covid was still a risk and monitored through the Council's strategic GOLD group, the overall impact on services had reduced. 
 

At the end of Quarter 1 the risk reduced to reflect this however, the impact on staff absences was still monitored.

Comments of Cabinet Members:

§  Councillor Batrouni referred to the cyber security risk as outlined in the report as red. This was a UK concern and the Council was therefore trying to mitigate the risks.  There was an external review being undertaken by Audit Wales an internal procedures were being addressed, working closely with the IT Shared Resource Services (SRS).  The Leader agreed with these comments and was assured that the officers were doing everything to mitigate these risks.

Decision:

Cabinet considered the contents of the quarter one update of the Corporate Risk Register.