Transcript

All right, evening everybody, very cold evening, thanks for turning up, just to kick off so we know we are being recorded and streamed online, so let's move on then, apologists for absence. And we have apologists for absence from Councillor Shakeshaft, Thompson, Haynes and Lee and Councillor Harris will be running late. Which is the reason why I am standing in until he arrives and I will try to be as efficient as he always is. Next point, declarations of interest from any of us. Do we have to, active for today, it features in a couple of spaces, is that relevant or not? Yeah, maybe myself and Andrew Frick. There's a bottom above today. Move on to the next topic. The minutes of the meeting held on 21st February. Can I move that, that's an accurate record and the objections? Okay, so we now move on to the internal audits, progress reports, and can I invite Phil Lazenby to introduce the report, please? Sorry. Thank you. I am not going to talk for long, I am going to take the document as read and since we haven't produced any audit reports in the period since the last audit update that I provided, I am just going to talk and say that unfortunately there are four or five audit reports that miss the deadline for presenting to this committee. They will be presented to the next committee. If anyone has got any questions about progress, happy to provide an update. Obviously there is also the plan which has been submitted to the meeting that took place between this and the last audit committee. Thank you. If there's no comments, should we move on to the next report to be? Yes. Are there any comments from members? Okay. If not, let's move on to the external reports. Yes, we will note that that has been received and move on to the next report with the external auditors reports and number from do. Would you like to introduce that? So I move that that's noted. Okay, good afternoon, everybody. The report, I will take it as read as well. This is our annual audit report which is basically around the VFM arrangements. It clearly states that we haven't really found any issues with your VFM arrangements at this stage. So I'll take it as read and take any questions if there are any. Any questions from members? Yes. Thanks, Chair. On the audit of the financial statements, part two, which is page six of your report, it says we have noted that five members did not complete declaration of interest forms as required by internal policies. That has appeared at least twice in the past 12 months since I've been sat on this committee and nothing seems to be happening about it. Is it this administration that people have not signed it or is it the previous administration? Through you, Chair. The reference to this that you may well have seen again within the last 12 months, the AAR was presented to this committee last time at the last sitting as a draft status. So you may well have referenced it at that point in time. So this isn't another five members. This is updating that position. So effectively, there's been no change in the number. But this all relates to our accounts from last financial year. So after the top of my head, I can't remember the numbers, but there were at least two or three that were from the previous administration that again, by the time the election happened, they hadn't produced their related party forms. So it isn't a declaration of interest. And there is a slight difference. So the declaration of interest that needs to be completed and filled in and are online, they have been completed. This is an annual declaration effectively of related parties that we as the Finance team seek information on. So we do use the declaration of interest forms and the declarations of interest that are online. But this is just an effectively a reaffirmation effectively of that position. Thank you. But will we see this again next year or is this committee and this administration now all up to date? We've been chasing members for this year end and we will continue to do so and we'll make sure that all members do complete their forms this year. Thank you. Nick, Sue, your chair, can you remind us of the deadline for the related party transaction? Some of us have met. I feel one in last year but not this year. It was the beginning of April but we do tend to send out reminders as well during towards the end of April. I haven't seen anything this year been sent to me. I may have missed it so apologies if I have but so I'm glad I'm on here because he's now reminding me to do it. We'll make sure that the next council meeting and we'll get that as a mop up effectively. Thank you, Jim. I just wonder if there's a bit of a wider publicity and training piece for next year because I was aware of it as well. I saw it and as soon as I saw the email I asked for a printed form because I knew that I'd have to scribble on it and figure it out. When I did mine, I'm a trusted number of charities. I'm not the treasurer so I don't know the ins and outs of the accounts and so put on that this is what's on the declaration of interest forms. Not aware of anything but might have been sort of thing and I'm assuming that's okay because I'm in it and didn't scream at me when I put a tip but it is a form that you've got to sign and it's very official and I appreciate it comes with a letter that explains it probably what looks like in layman's terms but it is a little bit confused as to what this form is compared to everything else. Maybe a little video or a brief workshop to go through it. It could be clubbed up with other things but well in advance people know it's coming. They know they've got the two-week window and everything else because it is just a little bit confusing and pressuring when you've got to starting your name to it. Yeah what we could do is something that the council tax setting council meeting either before or afterwards or something like that we'll ought to do something next year thank you. If there's no more comments from members then I'll have found the email now but it had forward on it so we will forward it from last year so that may have confused me but okay. If there's no more comments I'll take that that we've accepted the reports and we'll move on to the next item which is the ethical and fossil fuel investments. So I propose that we note the policies and invite Nick to introduce the reports. Thank you chair. So this report has been brought based on a question from council on the 12th of December 2023 regarding the investments that the council has and effectively what are the ethical and sustainable policies that each of those counterparties that we invest with have. So at paragraph 2.1 you'll see as at the 30th of January that's 2024 and the council had investments in in the following funds whether that be money market funds call accounts property funds or a diversified income fund. So those are where we are again as at that point in time where we're investing our funds and we we sort out and their their policies all of the various investment funds policies and they they've been appended to the paper as background papers so they're available if them if anyone wants to view them. On review it appears that again and looking at all of those policies they do all of the investments are are on to odds with our our values around ethical investments and and sustainable investments. So effectively there's no there's nothing in there that we wouldn't expect that to be but again and the background papers are there for the people to be able to read should they need to. What we have suggested and and we we kind of do as a matter of course but we haven't written into our treasury management strategy is effectively if if a point in time we're looking for we're looking to invest some money in an investment and because of surplus funds for a period of time practically what the officers are doing if there are two investments available and one of them is a sustainable or ethical specific one and one of them is not necessarily specifically invested in in investing in ethical or sustainable processes as long as everything else about them was the same we'd always choose the ethical and the ethical one. Now let's say we're practically doing that we haven't necessarily got it written down in a way that we would do that so what we've suggested is when we bring back the mid-year strategy or the mid-year update report on the 11th of December this year we'll just write some words in that effectively says that that's what we'll do so we wouldn't necessarily benchmark it in any other way as long as let's say it was a similar investment to one that we could get anywhere else if it was a specific one that was ethical or sustainable then we'd choose that. Have to take any questions Rick. Okay if there's no questions from members I propose that we accept that report and we'll move on to the next item strategic risk risk management and Richard is going to introduce this. Thank you chair. The post of my report is to provide both an update on the new risk register which was updated in April this year and an overview of the performance of the risk register dropped to this date so we met in February with SLT and reviewed the strategic risk register and of the 10 strategic risk that we had on that time nine have remained we've removed one the one that we've removed is the cost of living the cost of living whilst it remains significant it's not a strategic risk to the authority so that's been taken off the register and I've been tasked with developing a further one for consideration by SLT to look at capacity so capacity for dealing with high-level priorities is where we're going with that one but that is still in development and I'll go to SLT for review before it's decided that it will go any further and let before it even goes on to the register. In terms of the performance of the risks over the year we've only had one that's changed its score so corporate governance over the year decreased its likelihood and that decreased its likelihood because of the processes that we've put in place to embed cabinet to do all the things that we've done around those new systems so it was felt that we'd had sufficiently long enough to evaluate and think of running smoothly so the score was reduced from that one. We have four risks within the current risk register that sit us red now red means that they are our highest risk obviously and also they're the ones that we need to pay the most attention to because they have the biggest potential to cause us loss. Having said that it should be remembered that reds can't always be reduced we try our hardest to reduce it to the target score that we perceive is the best score for that the most achievable score but we can't always reduce strategic risks out of the red because of the external factors for instance the economy we can't influence the economy we can't influence wars we can't influence those sort of things that have the effects that are directly connected to what we do. Out of the nine risks that remained 162 actions were assigned to those risks some of those are long-term actions so some of them maybe two or three years in length because of the type of action that they are and the type of strategic risk they were talking about. Over the last year 77 of those were completed and 85 remained still on the action list. At the point of reporting we had two that hadn't met their target due dates one of those was for growth infrastructure and that related to a review that we needed to undertake to look at how the full fiber delivery across Newark would have a future effect on the growth of Newark. That is going to be completed it was completed now and will be reported to the next risk as a completed action so it just didn't make it in the last review and then the the other action was in our contracts and supply failure so we've now developed a process around our contracts register that involves a twice yearly review of the contracts registered by a body of officers but equally it's got a reporting and an assurance element to it so so once a month a member of an officer goes to directorate meetings and reports on where the contract register is so that's what contracts we've got where are they in their life what what have we got in terms of process on that. That again has now been introduced and is in place and will be going as a completed action in the next quarters review. All of the nine risks that we have just for reassurance obviously have an action plan they they remain established and mature if we do go ahead and develop the the tenth one which would be capacity a fresh action plan will be developed with the risk register owner and the group of people that are supporting that risk through its life. Um that's the the end of our report share. I'll open up to questions. Can I say a kiss? Thanks Chairman I think it's more of a comment than a question I think I've raised it previously about the corporate governance piece. I think previously we spoke about where the risk sat in terms of likelihood it was to do with the governance change um from May 2022 and I raised the point that um whilst it's been two years since that that governance structure change we've had um quite a uh big change in terms of the council's makeup over the last year so it's rather or not that likelihood has decreased in that we're still in the first year for many of our current councillors. Yeah it's definitely been addressed um it's something that we we've considered in the risk and there are a number of actions that have been tailored around that mainly around training information instruction introduction that sort of area very similar to things we were talking about earlier making sure that processes are understood and and followed um so so it is it is moving to a column we took on board from last time you mentioned it or may be mentioning it um and and I think we're quite well developed in terms of the the actions now I'm looking at Sue because Sue's the editor of that one and I don't think we've got any any of that type of action outstanding I think we we are in a good position. Yes I think that's right and but we will keep the programme of training and um under review and this committee we'll obviously hear all about that as well thanks yeah um it's quite quite a few risks that aren't coming up to target is that normal for a usual sorry it is I mean um whilst we we are heading to our targets some of these targets will be long tail targets i.e. two three years before we get there um so we we report quarterly on those so SLT get a view of what's happening and then once a year we review those targets so some of those targets we we we we know that we we're not getting towards we want to be but some of our aspiration in where we want to be um and some we we the the current arrangements and market and and and things that happening in the world stop us from achieving that um there there there is a difference between where we are and our tolerance for appetite and our ability to mitigate so so we we as long as the mitigation is the most that we can put in and we are doing that and it still remains red then then there's there's very little else we we can do because the the external factors that I spoke about but yes yes it is it is useful for them to be on for a while and it's probably a silly question but will the mayoral authority new mayoral authority make any difference on your risk assessment it's not one that we specifically looked at at the moment in the in the risks so the risks will over the year be developed and things like that will be considered in the the the framework of the nine risks that we currently have if there is something that that comes at any point in the year that needs a new risk assessment then we will produce it in draft SLT will agree it and we will move on but it's it's all SLT led in terms of where we go with this it isn't it isn't stuff it's a level if there's no more questions there are moves to accept the reports and move on to the next topic which I can read correctly statements of accounting policies put this year and Andrew you can introduce that please thank you chair and so these are the policies that are to be applied in the 23 24 financial statements and this is to ensure the accounts present a true and fair view so it's to give members chance to review those policies and these are all in accordance with our code of practice on local authority accounting in the UK paragraph 2.1 it details the key changes to the code unfortunately none of those changes impact upon the council's accounting policies appendix a has the full detail list of the accounting policies and I just note that they are all the policies and not all of those will be included in the actual statement of accounts that we produce that come to this committee as well and there'll be all the ones that are immaterial and that'll be under is one presentation at the statements we'll remove them just so there's not so much good for everybody to read and I'm happy to take any questions um sorry move that we accept that reports and the thing we move on um I think it's Andrew again to talk about the pension assumptions for this current year thank you chair and so again this is a report for the count the members opportunity to review the assumptions that are used and this is for the calculation under is 19 which is employee benefits for what again what gets included in the council accounts for 2023 24 and the council use a calculated cost and the assumptions based from the advice of the actor and which is the not county council pension fund and it's born in wadington or the administering authority under that with not county council and appendix a is their accounting reports which details all the assumptions used in calculating those figures and appendix b have also attached a useful frequent ask questions because I think there's a lot of terminology in there that even account and struggle decide for him what they're actually meaning so hopefully that might be helpful again i'm happy to take any questions on that report uh council the killers yeah thanks chair it's just a question as to whether or not we need to have taken a vote for agenda item nine because recommendation is that we approve it rather than note it i think everything else before has been to notes or okay but this one's um note and prove as well sorry do we have a proposal seconder for item nine okay and i think we have to do that if we had the discussion for number ten i can't remember no no we just we're just starting that okay okay so um can i ask for a proposal and seconder that we accept this reports and show of hands oh took that's a gender item ten yeah okay okay so i think we're going to move on now to number 11 it's still similar about valuation assumptions for the current year andrew thank you chair yep so again this is a similar report this time this is under i s 16 which is property plans and equipment and so again this is give members chance to review the assumptions being used in those values for the financial accounts 23 24 and these are made by our external values who are woke set in eve and i s 16 this is the accounting standard which is for the treatment of most ppe initial measurement will be a cost and then subsequent measurements will be used in revaluation model and this is where the value is coming and they'll review the list of assets that as a minimum will be revalued once every five years so appendix a is the external value is their assumption report for the general assets um appendix b is the list of actually assets that are due to be revalued this financial year and appendix c is their valuation assumptions for all the hra assets as well and again i'm happy to take any questions on these reports thank you Councillor Friedman yeah just on the introduction to the appendix on page this four can i read it one 60 one 60 and the page 160 i just noticed that they we've highlighted in yellow the valuation statement and the whole axis should that be filled in or when will it be filled in I apologize i didn't mean to mention that in the reports and we won't get the valuations yet because what happens is this report is more about the assumptions being used in generating those assumptions and but yeah when the value ascenders is i did forget to take the highlight to be out but it'll probably what'll happen now is we've had the list of values will review that and go back with any queries and then they'll sign this as our external audit has come in to then value to the accounts as well okay there's no more questions can i after a proposed and seconder so that we um note and approve that reports so move on to item 12 on the agenda yeah yeah i'll pass this on to Sue to introduce thank you chair so this item is about an annual review of the constitution and what's being proposed is an informal workshop of all members of this committee who wish to attend to have an opportunity to discuss this before any proposals are brought forward to committee there is a summary in the recommendation of the areas that we've identified could do with a review and perhaps an update one being the petition scheme second one the council full council procedure rules in respect of petitions and also procedure in respect of annual budget third one being the local code on corporate governance which is due for an update and then there's a catchall for any other amendments we notice when we're doing that more detailed piece of work going through the constitution so the proposal like i say is a workshop bringing the report back to this committee so that a broad detailed consideration can be given by members before considering a formal report thank you Councillor Freeman yeah i'll get angry with you one day um just two questions i heard Sue say said said the word we when she went through the recommendations unlike an expansion on who we are and the other minor amendments proposed by the monitoring office monitoring office i'd like to know what those would be and also i can understand why it should go to a workshop for all Councillors to be involved because we've all got an interest in this same with the next agenda item as well but i just wondered if that was done previously because i can't remember a workshop last year i may i may be wrong i may have missed it thank you the we as really just myself and the deputy monitoring officer looking through this and looking through the constitution and we have a sort of list of things we feel need to review and an update in or the number four i do have a list but i haven't really you know need to review it and finalise it again really before that workshop to be honest that's why there's not more detail in the report in terms of the workshop yes well we didn't actually do the annual review last year because because the constitution was quite new and we did what we did last year was more of a review six months in of the governance arrangements if you remember before the election so this is really the first time we've done done the annual review under the previous governance arrangements it would have been the councillor's commission looked at these issues like this before a more formal report went to policy and finance committee but now this committee has responsibility for looking at the constitution amendments before before they go forward to full council it has to be full council that approves any substantive changes to the constitution it might be that we look at setting up something more formal fraud in governance committee going forward um i know it worked quite well doing a working um a working group for planning committee recently so the suggestion is to follow as similar and see how that works just if i can come back i do remember the uh workshop that we had on the governance arrangements but been as i was a new council at the time and i wasn't used to what was before i didn't attend so that's why i didn't didn't know so thanks for that so council michael general what is the time scale of the informal workshop would it be within next three months next six months if we could bring it back to next committee i would but i wouldn't like to commit to that partly because of of um member availability but also um depends how much work needs to be done in the preparation so i wouldn't want to commit to next committee but i'd send being new for next committee or the other one after that if that's acceptable for committee else um thank you chair it's just about point i point at one point one i'm not sure if i'm remembering things correctly or not and i could just be getting it all confused in my mind but it says that order in governance committee um consider the constitution in November 23 when it recommended for council that amendments be made to allow for public speaking of planning committee i thought that we had said that we had given planning committee permission to make the decision themselves and that's where when tom is that right yeah thank you um i can clarify that this committee proposed to full council a change to the constitution to facilitate planning committee taking its own decisions and that's exactly what planning committee then did am i allowed to ask a questioner chair um going back to the we question are that this is coming out from the monitoring officers are we as members or as members of this committee able to suggest things that might be considered I think that would be part of the purpose of the workshop yes chair if i may uh that's a good point um and i would suggest if any members do have anything regarding the constitution that they would like uh look at to raise it before the workshops hold to the office to prepare and give us the current state to play i'm unclear what i'm supposed to do with this am i is this one of these some so we we need a proposal and seconder for this recommendation that we go through would propose a recommendation similar thing number 13 i think over soon please thank you yeah yes quite right it's a similar proposal to have a workshop again this time to look at the code of conduct complaints procedure which which has been on the work program um actually a colleague has already started working on so it was some draft to to look at in relation to this but again we think a workshop would be helpful to talk it through a bit more freely before it came to committee so it's a very similar recommendation to the other report to have a have a workshop and to bring a report back thank you Councillor Freeman i would recommend the chair of that workshop have a very robust approach to it because i think a lot of members will be interested in making their comments about least least of all members that aren't here today there's committee um because there are concerns across all parties about how the code of conduct uh complaints are dealt with and rightly so i wonder if it might be useful prior to that whether we can have again it depends on timing of the workshop and uh but it would be useful to have if we could see how other councils similar councils you know our family group of councils deal with it and whether there are any differences that we can look at because it's always good to look at what other people do we see whether it's whether ours can fit into that okay Councillor Michael. Jim i'm not writing thinking that it's a hearing made up of three members of this committee that deals with the code of conduct complaints against councillors that's the process that we have yes if a matter was investigated and it was found there was a case to answer then it would go to a subcommittee of this committee of three members that's right we're looking at the whole process from initial assessment through to that stage we're not looking at revising not considering revising the code of conduct at this point because that is based on the local government association model code so we're not proposing to look at that but we are looking to the process and since i think the report says since the model code was adopted the local government association has published some useful guidance both on the code but also how how to handle complaints under the code as well which we do refer to all the time when we're dealing with them now but it's about bringing that formally into our process and seeing if there's anything else we should do as well could have just come back to you and again are you looking at doing this to bring it to the July meeting because that means we've got to have two workshops within the month of May thank you um yes i think really it's unlikely and going to be able to do both of these before before that date if we could get one done and a more more prep's been done on this one so far so that might be the one we'll do willing to do first if it members not that through but and i think it's really unlikely we get those back to the next meeting thank you jere just in terms of the lj's published guidance um on how to handle the code how does that align with the the current process he said that you referenced to it i assume that that'll make a big part of the workshop and that would take the code kind of from the lga so is there any real difference at the moment in the way that our process works and the guidance that they give us there isn't a real difference the detailed provisions from the lga really build on with what we've got in our code i can't think of anything that conflicts without sorry in our process i can't think of anything that conflicts with our process it's more detailed though and it helps um it helps reach decisions and sort of guide you through um looking at criteria and that sort of things for dealing with complaints there's nothing that conflicts is just it's more of it really and it's quite helpful okay if if we're all happy could i propose and get a proposal seconded for that yeah i'm over recommendation share okay thank you so we're going to move on to item 14 the cyber reports so can i advise and invite Dave Richards and to present his reports thank you chair this is just an update from the lga cyber 360 which was done in 2023 it's just to present the updated results and from members of the committee to understand those and to feedback of any any comments etc um due to the nature of the report is an exempt item and i'm happy to take any questions on it as it stands at the moment yeah we'll be dealing with certain items in the exempt section so perhaps more detailed questions can be left to there um and this is one where i have to get a proposal seconded do i let's put a note in okay so i propose we notice item 15 um is that a work plan for the coming months so i'd invite sue to say a few words on that thank you yeah this report is for consideration and approval the only comment i was going to make on it which we might want to compact to after Dave's reporting exempt session but is whether members still want to receive that report every committee or there was some discussion at pre-agender about whether it was needed every committee beside report that that's the only comment i had on the work program but members comments very well could we just get a report if there's a significant change that's all makes sense so only if something significantly changes Dave and you want to alert us to it i think that would be fine ruin any other comments jim could i could i suggest we leave it at the discretion of the jebon because he would know if it needs to go on the work plan for that next meeting okay so can i can i propose that we accept the work plan with the proviso that the chairman considers whether the cyber report has to be included whether there's sufficient material in its for consideration each each meeting or at a particular meeting have a show of hands for right um at this point um needs to be a bit formal so to consider i i move a motion that we consider resolving that under section hundred a sub towards four of the local government at 1972 the public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as to find in part one of schedule twelve a of the acts uh are we do we have a proposal and seconder for that's thank you okay in the show of hands yeah okay thank you thank you for the opportunity to be a part of the committee and to be a part of the committee. 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