Transcript

OK then, thank you. Can I welcome everybody to this afternoon's meeting of the Governance and Audit Committee, Tuesday, 11th June, held here at the Council Chamber at the Guildhall. This meeting will be webcast, so please speak clearly into the microphone after pressing the button to switch it on after I have turned off my microphone. For those of you who don't know, there's a location of exits and toilets and refreshments availability you can see there, but I don't think there's any public here, so we can go through quite quickly. In the event of a fire alarm being activated, please evacuate the building in an orderly manner through the nearest door and follow the fire exit signs. The assembly point is the fountain at the front of the Guildhall, adjacent to Costa Coffee. If you require any assistance in vacating the building, please inform officers as soon as possible. But before I go on, can I just check that we are heard by members satisfactorily? Thank you. Right, so the first item on the agenda is apologies for absence. Maisie, have we got any apologies, please? Thank you, Chairman. We've received apologies from Councillors Mrs Lawrence, Mulally Villan and Alison Adams. Thank you. Thank you, too. Right, public participation period. Up to 15 minutes are allowed for public participation, and participants are restricted to three minutes each. I don't think we have anyone here this afternoon, in which case we'll move on. Minutes of the previous meeting. To confirm and sign as a correct record the minutes of the meeting of the Governance and Audit Committee held on Tuesday 23rd of January 24. These have been circulated, and unless we have any questions, can I propose from the floor that they are accepted. Do I have a seconder? It's not on my list. It's on the next one on the list. Yeah, minutes of the previous meetings. Okay, so I beg your pardon. So anyway, I propose those from the floor. Chair, can I have a seconder, please, for those minutes? Thank you, Councillor Darcelle. All those in favour? Anyone against? I think therefore it's unanimous because the other people weren't here. Thank you. Right, members, declarations of interest. Members may make any declarations at this point, but may also make them at any time during the course of the meeting. Do we have anyone wishing to make any declarations? Thank you. Let's go on to number 5. Matters arising schedule. Setting out current positions of previously agreed actions as at the 23rd of June, and this is on page 10 of your pack. I'd like to ask Maisie to speak to this, please. Thank you, Chairman. From the previous meeting there were two actions that have been picked up relating to the format of the combined assurance report and a review of Scampton, which will come back to the committee at a later date. The report is for noting and there's nothing further, Chairman. Thank you. Are there any questions? In that case we'll move on to item 6, public reports for consideration. The first of these is pages 11 to 28 of your pack, the internal audit report, and I'll ask Emma Foy to speak to this paper. Thank you, Chair. Claire Goodenough is not here, our head of internal audit for the period 23/24, so I will take the next two papers and do my best to answer them. The first paper, which is on page 11, is the quarter 4 internal audit report. The quarter 4 internal audit report was reported at a point in time, so that was the 12th of April, 2024. At the 12th of April, the internal auditors were 99% complete on their audit work. They are now 100% complete. In quarter 4 there were five reviews that they completed as detailed on page 20. ICT incident management, which got substantial assurance, levelling up phase 2, which got substantial assurance, financial key controls, which got substantial assurance, then performance management, which was adequate assurance, and procurement, which had a limited assurance opinion. This is our first and only limited assurance review from district council perspective, and as a result, the district council has requested that this area is specifically relooked at by the new internal auditors during 24/25, so that the management team and members of this committee can get assurance that the areas raised in that review and the recommendations are being implemented. There were some themes to those recommendations that were raised, and there is a summary of the work contained within this report. The first recommendation theme is around updating the contract procedure rules in line with the new procurement act. The second theme is around making sure that we have the resources in place, and the third theme is around compliance with our own procedure rules and document management. I am happy to take any questions on the report. However, you may find that they are already addressed in the following report, which is the year-end report and opinion. Thank you. Have we got any questions? Councillor Brockway? Sorry, Mr Morris, you will be second. Thank you very much, Chairman. Thank you for this report. I think it is very well written, very easy to read and interesting. As you can imagine, I am going to ask about the limited assurance, and I have to say I am not happy that we have been given a limited assurance there. It is very clear further in the report that these are peripheral matters. That is what it actually says, and to me, limited is perhaps too severe a judgement. If you look at page 8 of the pack, in the top box, second lot of bullet points, it says our review also found that the CPPRs do not reflect the current thresholds for the public contrast regulation. Okay, they don't meet them. And then it goes on to say the requirements of the procurement act will be captured as part of a planned update of the CPPRs. So there is actually a planned update. So that is not a limited assurance judgement. You know, the CPPRs are out of date. The Council knows it has got a planned update in place, and then it says outdated CPPRs may result in staff being unclear or unaware of current legislation. Yeah, of course, that is why the Council is updating them. And I am really sorry. I think this limited assurance needs to be challenged. I did look at it with a view of a case, oh my gosh, we have got limited insurance. Why has that happened? What has gone wrong? But I have really come to the conclusion, I think it is the limited assurance that is wrong. Really sorry. Okay, thank you, Chairman. But the rest, really good and congratulations for the high standards across the board. Thank you, Councillor Brockley. This is where we would like to answer. Well, I think actually we have seen this. This is only one limited assurance review. We did challenge it during the audit process. However, I think as an authority, what we decided to do was take a step back and just get on with the things they are asking us to do. And that was the way to do it and then get it relooked at. And I think you are correct. In the actual overall internal audit opinion, they do refer to some of those points, I think, being peripheral. So I think that is the way we are doing. We are going to take it in the best advice that it has meant, in the best way that it has meant. And we are going to get on and make sure that we implement all of those recommendations. Thank you. Mr Morris. Right, sorry about that. I was pressing the yes button. But mind me, it is effectively the same question. I was going to ask, rather than actually wait for another whole year cycle to go along, could we just have a simpleton's guide to what went wrong? And I think Jackie has got to the heart of the matter and my question is closed. Thank you. Thank you very much. Councillor Haig. Just one quick question from me. It mentions under ICT instant management that the scope excluded assessing the Council's cyber security instant management practices to ISO 27001. I am curious why it was excluded. I am assuming it is because one of the recommendations is to develop an instant management plan and they could not be assessed. Thank you. We are not ISO 27001 compliant at this point. So to carry out a review against that would not necessarily allow us to test the controls that we actually have in place. So that is why the scope is reduced and amended. Thank you. Councillor Darcelle. Thanks. I have just got a small question to ask really. On page 21 of the report, it says that there has not been sufficient checking of orders that have been lumped together or duplicated to get under a threshold. Thank you. Did you hear that? We heard it. Could you just finish it off as a question because I am not quite sure we took it all in. We were distracted slightly. We are going to make sure that this is discontinued, this practice. Thank you. I just cannot find where it is referred to in the summary of the key observations. I think we are implementing all of the recommendations at pace, but I cannot find the specific reference that you have just given on page 21. But I can assure you that we are working through it. I cannot see anything about things being lumped together. I think it is in the second paragraph, Emma. Is he referring to the last sentence, a lack of full oversight? Thank you. It is on page 22. There is no review of aggregate spend across the Council to identify any attempts to avoid the CPPRs, though for example splitting of contracts to keep below threshold levels or for identifying opportunities for the Council to obtain better cost terms and conditions and value for money. What they are saying, they are not saying that we are doing that. What they are saying is we are not carrying out a detailed review that might identify if we were. And that is one of the recommendations that has come out that we are implementing. Thank you. Are there any other comments from the floor? It did occur to me that one option we could have, and I appreciate it is being picked up by our current internal organizers, but it might be something that we would like an officer to come and talk to us about at the next meeting to reassure us that things are moving on in that direction. So I suspect that would be Eddie Selby, would it? If it was possible, I think it would be useful if he could come to the next meeting just to reassure us of the progress that is being made on that particular issue. I have one other question. I find it interesting that when we have the high recommendations, they actually highlight them, but when it is the low ones, they are not so sure. So a bit later on, where we have got issues where there might be one of low incidence, which we know is of low incidence, but there is no mention in the text of what that might be. And I do think that that is a bit unfair, really, for us as a committee to have to ask for that or seek that out, and I would hope that under the new scheme that that might be something that would come forward. Can you help us on that, Aaron? Yes, of course. We will make sure we include all actions, low, medium and high, all in the reports. Thank you. Thank you. So unless there is anyone else wishing to speak, can I have a proposer to accept that paper? Thank you, Councillor Haig. A seconder, Councillor Rockway. All those in favour? That is unanimous. So we now move on to the second item, which is the internal audit annual report 2324, which is pages 29 to 45 of your pack. And again, I would like to ask Emma Foy to introduce, please. Thank you. So this is our annual internal audit opinion for 2324. It has been prepared by Lincolnshire Internal Audit and Claire Goodenough, as our chief internal auditor for the authority has signed it off for this year. So this is the last piece of the jigsaw for Lincolnshire County Council delivering the internal audit services. The report summarises the role of internal audit and their approach. It details how the plan of work was established. And on page 39, I suppose, is probably the most important piece of the report. And that is the annual audit opinion for 2324. Claire has stated that she is satisfied that sufficient assurance work has been carried out to allow her to form an opinion or conclusion on the adequacy and effectiveness of the internal control environment. In her opinion, the frameworks of governance, risk management and management controls are substantial and audit testing has demonstrated controls to be working in practice. Whilst the audit work awards one limited assurance rating for procurement, the areas of non-compliance were periphery in nature and acknowledged by the council. In her opinion, when viewed in its entirety, this one assignment award does not impact upon the governance and internal control in operation as it is very much in isolation. Where weaknesses have been identified through internal audit review, the audit team have worked with management to agree appropriate corrective actions within an appropriate time scale for improvement. On the whole, the application of management action has been exemplar throughout the year. So that is our internal audit opinion. That feeds into our overall management assessment of controls, risks and our annual governance statement as well. Just one limited assurance review this year, which is procurement, which we are very much taking very seriously and making sure that we implement all of those actions. The rest of the internal audit report focuses on some infographics around the levels of assurance and also a pie chart showing the results of the reviews. They provided some additional observations on actions, fraud corruption and the NFI. And then they have also provided information around their quality assurance process and their performance. And I think that probably concludes their report. Thank you. Now, as we all know, this is the last report that we are getting from this set of internal auditors. We were worried earlier on in the year that we wouldn't get 100% completion and that this particular statement might not be deliverable, which was a great concern to us as an authority. I think we should be grateful that it is in and also be passing on to the officers our gratitude and thanks for getting a positive response. Have we got any further questions? Councillor Brockway? I am really sorry to be a pain about this, Chairman. You know, I understand what Emma is saying and obviously I support the action that you have taken, but they really have said things that are not appropriate. I mean, given that the stuff that they were worried about by their own definition was peripheral, they used that word although they said periphery. On page 45, it says, if you look at the boxes there, it says limited assurance

• significant gaps, weaknesses or non-compliance were identified. Improvement is required to the system of governance, risk management and control to effectively manage the risks to the achievement of objectives in the area audited. I don't believe that's true. I really don't believe that that's an appropriate thing and whilst I will support the Council's decision to just sort of take it in the chin, dust ourselves down and move on, I think that is an inappropriate. I think it should be adequate and I'm tempted to ask if I can challenge it but that's a conversation for later. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you. Any other questions? I think the point is well made and I do actually understand where you're coming from. I think it's also important as an authority, we just don't sit back on our laurels, we recognise that. We know that procurement needs to be improved and it's all things, as you know, in Ofsted and all these inspections, what you get these one word things don't really always give us the most accurate descriptions but I think it's something which is well worth looking at but thank you for making the point. So unless there's any further comments, I would like to ask, have we got a proposer to accept the report? Thank you. It was proposed by Councillor Dobie, a seconder. Councillor Haig. All those in favour? Again, that is unanimous. Thank you very much. Now, if we move on to the year-end Treasury management out term, pages 46 to 62 of your pack and I'd like to ask Peter Davie to introduce. Thank you, Chair. This report is the annual Treasury management report for 2023-24 which updates Councillors on progress against the Treasury strategy which was approved by Council in March 2023 for the 2023-24 financial year. This report is required to comply with the SITFA code of practice on Treasury management and also to keep members updated with the current situation. The report has been written during a time of high inflation levels in the early part of the year which have then dropped to more usual levels towards the end of the year. Interest rate levels have also been relatively high in comparison to historic norms. The report contains commentary on the Council's Treasury position and also includes commentary on the economy by our Treasury advisors link asset services. The main part of the report shows that interest rates have been elevated and therefore the Council has benefited from increased interest rates on its investments generating 1.144 million during 2023-24. This has overachieved the budget by 567,000. Through closely monitoring cash flow and the capital programme under spending in year, external borrowing has not been increased as much as expected during the year. This has meant the exposure to increased interest cost payable has been minimised. As can be seen on the debt maturity profile table at section 4 of the report, some existing borrowing will need to be refinanced in the short term and this will mean higher rates will be payable on the loans. As can be seen at section 3 of the report, the Council's capital financing requirement has reduced during 2023-24 mainly due to setting aside minimum revenue provision in the year which is in line with the Treasury management strategy. The Treasury management indicators are detailed throughout the report and I can confirm there have been no breaches of the indicators during 2023-24. The final part of the report is an economics update which has been supplied by our Treasury advisors link asset services which is useful to understand the national and international context the Council is operating within when undertaking its Treasury activities. I welcome any questions Councillors may have. Thank you. Thank you. Have we got any questions? Councillor Brockway, I have one too. Just on page 15, I wonder if you can just help my understanding with something please. Again, who wrote this report? It's a great report you know. Was it you Peter? Okay, it's a really, really good report. The way you put the information in small chunks, manageable, helping the understanding, it's very public friendly so thank you ever so much for that. Right, page 50 towards the end, it's talking about the CFR, capital finance requirement which I understand and it's talking about the repayment. Now what's the other term for that? I've lost that now. Minimum revenue provision, right. There seems to be an encouragement. I understand that we can't keep the borrowing going up and up and up and we're expected to pay back the minimum revenue provision. The end of the paragraph, it talks about we can borrow or repay at any time. But I wonder, is there any requirement for us to, or is there any encouragement or expectation for us to pay back a certain amount? Is it seen as good practice? And let's say we didn't pay back anything, we just kept it where it was. What are the repercussions for that? Thank you. Thank you. Peter? Yes, so the minimum revenue provision is based on looking at the level of debt and then making sure we make a prudent provision each year for that. And if we didn't do that, we would be breaking statutory guidance and our external auditors would pick us up on that. What I would say is say we do look at that calculation each year and do put it aside. The main reason behind MRP is that the current taxpayer must bear the consequences when borrowing decisions are made. So for example, if I borrow now and say, oh, I'm not going to pay it back for 50 years, don't worry about it. The current taxpayer isn't taking responsibility for that borrowing. It's left to future generations and taxpayers to pay it off. So the idea of MRP is that, say, the current taxpayer will make a contribution towards the current decision being made, if that makes sense. That's brilliant. Thank you. Thank you. Have we got any other questions? I know you very kindly provided this information to me during the week, but I was quite intrigued with the non-Treasury investments on page 55, where in total the portfolio was acquired for 21.6 or 21 and two-thirds million and is now worth just shy of 23 million. The question I was concerned about was had all the investments gone up or was there some variation? And perhaps you could just explain that to us, Peter. Sorry, yeah, because when we got these, I haven't got that paper in front of me, so I do apologise. But anyway, perhaps we could get the answer now. But thank you very much, Mr Morris. Yeah, so some of those investments have gone up and some of those have gone down. But effectively, that's just the value at the date, which the value of things that we would realise if we sold them at that date. Therefore, while we're holding them and we've got no appetite to sell them, then really it's just the valuation in the accounts currently. It would only be if we decided to make that decision to sell. That's when a loss or gain will be realised on whichever asset it was we decided to make that decision on, if that makes sense. Thank you. Right. Unless there's any other questions, have I got anyone to propose the acceptance of that paper? Thank you, Councillor Haig. Seconded. Thank you, Councillor Brockway. All those in favour? That's unanimous. If we can now move on, which will answer the question. The draft annual government statement, which is – sorry, I beg your pardon – an audited statement of accounts, which is page 63 to 205. And again, I'd like to ask Peter Davie to introduce those – the paper. Thank you. We have a bit of an entry. Thank you, Chairman. So it has been brought to my attention that some versions of the PAC may actually have the incorrect report attached to the papers, so I have got a paper copy of the report we're discussing, if anyone would like that handing round. Thank you. Thank you for that. Right. Would people like a copy just in case, and then we'll make sure that we haven't got a problem? I think we've got it. (Inaudible) (No audio) So just to clarify, then, you should have in front of you – it doesn't affect the figures at all – the recommendation which I'll read out that members pre-scrutinise the attached – an audited statement of accounts 2324. Any comments of this committee will be referred to the section 151 officer and the council's external auditors KPMG. Now, over to you, Peter. Thank you, Chair. I am pleased to introduce the 2324 draft statement of accounts for members of the committee to scrutinise and refer any comments to the council's section 151 officer and the council's external auditors KPMG. This committee is responsible for the approval of this statement of accounts and any material amendments to the accounts recommended by the external auditors. Members will be provided with specific training on the statement of accounts as required by the constitution a few days prior to the September meeting where the final audited accounts are due to be approved. The statement of accounts has been prepared under the international financial reporting standards based code of practice on local authority accounting. The accounts were published on the council's website and forwarded to the auditors by the 31st of May deadline. The auditors now have until the end of September to complete their audit and will present their findings to this committee on the 24th of September. For clarification, items in the statement which are positive are expenditure and items which are negative, either with a minus sign or in brackets, are income. Items within the accounts to draw members' attention to are the primary statements which show an improved balance sheet position, mainly due to an improved position on the council's pension fund. The deficit has reduced from 8.8 million to 2.5 million. This is due to increased investment returns and changes to longer term assumptions. The general fund has reduced slightly to 3.328 million as planned which is still well within prudent levels and the earmarked reserves have increased slightly as the council has achieved the budget surface for 23/24. It is also worth noting the council is still holding 3.6 million of capital grants at the balance sheet date for schemes which are due to be delivered in 24/25. The comprehensive income and expenditure statement shows an accounting surplus on services of 2.6 million and this is then reconciled to the actual budget surplus of 115,000 in the expenditure and funding analysis found at note 7 in the accounts. Although this can be a complicated and technical document, the key message is that the council has good reserve levels, has a robust medium term financial strategy which together mean the council is a going concern with no material uncertainty at this stage. I would like to place on record my thanks to the finance team who have worked very hard during March, April and May to meet the deadline for producing the accounts and I welcome any questions members may have. Thank you. Thank you. Mr Morris. Thank you, Chair. I read this last night thinking I could prepare myself for it, but I remembered of course we have a further opportunity in September which would be more appropriate for sort of in detail points that I might spot than to come up. But I got deeply frustrated because I am quite used to reading financial documents and looking through them, but I got deeply frustrated with this and just by chance last year's copy from wherever that came from, it appeared on my desk as if the financial gods had put it there. And the document for this year, the glossy document I am going to call it, the public facing document, appears to be twice as long as the one from the previous year. Firstly, if I am right or wrong, please put me straight, and if it is twice as long, the question is why and why are we actually adding so much into it? So, for example, do people reading this really need to know, for example, that borrowings for capital projects aren't capitalized until the project is complete, is just one thing that has come to mind I read. That is the level of detail this goes down to. So my sort of my real question amongst all this waffle is what really is the point of this report? Are we actually following guidance from CIPFA or a directive from the government that we have to include all those things? And if we are, okay, that is fine, but then does anybody really want to look at this who isn't, I would suggest, you know, really exposed to an accounting background or a qualified accountant even, should we actually be doing something which actually summarizes in some like an executive summary to make it what I am going to call user friendly to the bulk of the population? Because I am guessing that as a governance and audit committee, we are required in September, you know, to sprinkle holy water on this and actually say yes, it is okay. I doubt very much if any of them, and I would include me, anybody on this committee, I would include me, the financial office is of course excluded, actually can look through this and actually with all honesty say this is a document which we have studied thoroughly, I understand it or we understand it, and it looks all right to us. We are actually in a sense only saying yes, the procedures, the routines, the governance, if you like, the whole of the thing, and the auditors appear to have acted correctly, therefore we have to assume that it is okay. And I don't find that very satisfactory. I actually do think we need to have, you know, I am going to call it an idiot's guide for want of a better expression, so that people like me and others can actually pick up something which is far briefer to look at and be assured that everything is right. We know from the auditors that they follow the procedures. We know what they comment very much on our team's way of working. We know, we just had an example on the internal audit, how the council actually takes on the chin criticism and actually says okay, let's deal with it. But I actually, I struggle to really look at this document and say this is a great thing to have. I look at it, aren't the pictures pretty? They really enhance the text and the rest of it. And I, after being on this committee now for more years than I care to admit, I actually find myself disturbed by the fact I am being asked to, I and all of the rest of us here, being asked to sign off something which we really don't understand and there's so much detail in it that we drown in the detail if we try and, you know, burrow into it. So my question is, is this governed by, you know, others and I'm getting nods from Emma so my assumption is correct. And am I right to be concerned then that we as, I'm going to call us amateurs, informed amateurs at that, however much training we have, however much, you know, we've seen it all before, however much delineation we have, however much we trust the order of the rest of it, are we really in a position to say yes, here are the key figures, you know, the very small number of key figures which tell us yes, the council's fine or there's a problem. And so my question is, are we really sure we're, as a committee, we're approaching this with all honesty to be able to actually in September say we are satisfied as we ever can be that this is done correctly and we are happy therefore to put our stamp of appreciation of correctness or whatever to call it and say yes, this can go ahead. Sorry for the rant. >> Thank you. I think Emma Ford would like to reply. >> So it's an age-old discussion, really, around the accuracy and compliance with the CIPF for LASAC rules which have been complied with to create this large document and usability factor with this document. Now, what we do include is essentially an executive summary between pages one and about 25, I think, which does summarize the key statements and provide some further information on risk and operations. This year, as requested last year, we've actually added in more photographs from around the district and the annual governance statement is included in this document. Last year, you had it as a separate item on the agenda and we didn't put it in here. So that will have added probably another 8 to 10 pages just in that. I think we can look to do a smaller document. We do do something online for the local tax leaflet and we can look to do something similar for local residents on that. But as I say, it's an age-old discussion. Your role as governance and audit committee I don't think is ever expected to have that very, very detailed knowledge on the accounts. I think that's why we have KPMG here is basically to go through those statements and we pay them to tell you whether essentially they're okay or not. So it's very much in terms of the challenge on us is around really talking to KPMG as they're going through that external audit process. They haven't started just yet but they're about there. Talking to KPMG on the external audit process but also spending some time with them perhaps before that final meeting that we have in September which will give you a meeting potentially without the officers for you to have a frank and open discussion with our external auditors and you can ask them questions and hopefully they can provide you with some answers. But it's a very, very challenging piece because the document does seem to get longer and longer by each year. We get new notes, we get new definitions that we have to provide and it does decrease usability to our residents as a result. Thank you. I think Reshpal would like to make a comment. Should I press the right button? Yeah, so I'm not going to, the history of this I think Emma's told well there in terms of how this has grown and how this has changed. I think my role, you know, my take on your role is about gathering the assurance you get from various sources, i.e. the process which your officers have been through to produce the statement and then my reports, you'll recall at the last audit committee, the April audit committee, I presented our external audit plan highlighting this is our materiality level, these are the key significant risks that we see within your financial statements having done our audit planning work and as Emma has alluded to, in July we'll be beginning the detailed audit work and scrutiny of the financial statements and also completing the work around all the responsibilities regarding value for money. On the back of that we'll produce a very detailed report which will identify the results against the risks that we identified, any errors that we may have identified in those financial statements where they're above the areas that I identified in the audit plan, certain amounts, you know, where they're above those amounts, we'll flag those, any controlled efficiencies we've identified whilst going through that work and any other observations and it's to use that information to be able to ultimately take the recommendation that you will be taking in September. Emma's also mentioned the role of a private meeting, I think myself and the chair have talked about this interaction in terms of, you know, I at any point will have the ability to contact the audit committee chair and say actually I'm not happy about something and I don't think officers are doing X, Y and Z. Now that's absolutely not the case because I've not had that conversation but got the ability to do that and one of the things we made in the audit plan is an offer to meet with you in private at least twice a year to kind of, so you can get, you know, are you saying everything you're able to say in audit committee, you're not constrained by officers or anything, I mean for the record I wouldn't be but, you know, so have that conversation and again I'll put that on the record now. So I think actually before the final audit committee is a very good time to do that, refer to the final audit committee as it's the last one ever but we always refer to the one before we sign off as the final audit committee so we'll put that on record again and an opportunity to in detail to go through my report which provides you with the assurance on whether those statements that have been presented give a true and fair view of the financial position. Thank you. Anything you're happy with? Yes I am, I'm much happier than I might make out, it's just I thought this has just grown, why has it grown and in fact you quite rightly pointed out I hadn't noticed that the whole extra section put in, I'd lost the will to live at that point last night. But the, yes, and I recognise also that every now and then we have to remind ourselves in the committee what our role is, we're not actually actively engaged in the management of anything, we're actively engaged in making sure the management is engaged properly and that we've got people like the auditors, both sides of the table, appointed and doing their job, noting what they said and only getting concerned when they are flaking something up, our trust is in a course, if you like, the professional that's around us. So yes I am classified, the one small thing I point out, thank you Emma for putting more photographs in and I particularly liked the one I turned up, gosh, there's market raisin in it. And the picture says THI market raisin, so having not read the previous page properly I thought THI, that's not just the Midland Bank. And of course THI is the heritage, oh something town, something or other, but it's in there. But it's classic, it's a classic response I suspect from somebody who isn't familiar with the jargon in the report, of course they get thrown off course by jargon and the one thing I would say in any writing that these things is designed to go out, we do have to be alert all the time to jargonising anything, we know what it all means, but any third thing that's part of reading it, if they haven't read the previous page properly will be completely bemused by the initials THI. I shut up Steve, as I've said in that. No thank you and I think it's very wise, A, we do need to keep reviewing what we are here to do, and secondly abbreviations and jargon can be very confusing, I forgot what it stood for, but since you mentioned it I now remember, but that's a different matter. I think Councillor Haig wanted to go on to the question, no that's fine, Councillor D'Arcele. Thank you Chair, I'm almost of a different opinion to yourself, when I read it I thought it was delightful to have all that information in there, because there will undoubtedly be people in the ward who will appreciate some of that information, it's obviously not relevant to everyone, but there will be people who want to know how many people we are paying more than £85,000 a year to, and other bits of information, and not to have it in there would be a mistake, and I don't think it has cost us anything extra to compile it, all it is is a compiled report with a lot of information in it, and that information is about elsewhere in the organisation, but this does give anyone who is paying council tax a Bible of what has happened in the district council and where their money has gone, and I thought that was quite helpful. I mean I was delighted to see a reference to the Wythenford drainage board getting £300,000 from us, because I thought it would be able to have a naught on the end of it, but that is me, but that information is in there, and if anybody wants to dig for it, I thought it was very helpful. Thank you, Councillor, so the comment I was going to make on that is that the current training, which we will have before the next meeting, and most training officers when they speak about it say, first of all, you read the executive summary, and then it's only other groups, one of which is the government and audit group, who might need to read into the count and then use the notes, it's not a page where you read one to 250 or whatever it is, you have to dip in and out, so there is a skill to it, but I think there's also a need for how things are presented, and I just know at the current situation when we look at, I'll go on to safeguarding documents rather than political manifestos, but you will often get four or five different versions, and this is somewhere where I think we can learn in terms of these sorts of things, you can have a version which is just the executive summary, another version which is the full event, and you can get those which are easy reading, and all those sorts of things to make sure that everybody has that opportunity to get the sort of information they want from it, because after all we don't all want the detail, some of us just want to have a quick read, and so on, so I think that's something that we do need to look at. Mr Haig I don't know if it sounds like a ridiculous statement from my side, but quite some time ago I was scrolling through Instagram and TikTok and I saw David Cameron put out a video which was explaining the UK foreign policy in three minutes, and it was very well digested, I'm actually wondering if a video of some description at some point will potentially like… Councillor can I just step in now, and I think the monitoring officer, we are straying into politics and we are in the pre-election period, so I'm afraid we can't move on that. If you're suggesting however, that not, it's not just the printed word which could be used, but the thing, I think that's the message I heard being said, I'll be happy with all that. Thank you. My apologies, what a negative statement. No it's alright, easily done. Councillor, Councillor Gobby. Yeah I was just going to go and say that this committee is slightly different than a lot of others. Obviously we have the democratic oversight of the procedure, but we also have an independent oversight because we have members who are independent and not based on the council, and I think that that's something that's different from the other committees, and we've got to take that on board, and that's really our role, thank you. Thank you Councillor Gobby. Councillor Berkeley. Thank you very much Chairman, could I ask a specific question - oh it's gone - about pensions please, on page 98. It talks about material liabilities incurred, again it's an explanation to improve my understanding on this, it talks about the pension scheme and it talks about the net liability being reduced by the actuary to a decrease of 6.327 million, mainly due to changes in the actuarial financial assumptions. Now does that mean that it's an actual physical write-down of all that money, or is this an accounting thing? And I thought our net liability was considerably larger than that anyway, so if you could clarify that for me I'd be ever so grateful, thank you. Thank you. Peter. Yeah so as I mentioned earlier on the balance sheet, that's our biggest movement really is the reduction in that liability from I think it was around 8 million to 2 million, and you're right, a couple of years ago that was 40 million, so when we had the last triennia review the idea was that that deficit would get paid off over a 20 year period, and now we're only three years into it and we're down at 2.5 million, that has obviously come down a lot quicker than anticipated, and that's due to a number of reasons in terms of investment returns, returns on the gilt market, the gilt year market's kind of gone a bit funny over the last 12 months, there's been a lot of ups and downs, and changes to long term assumptions on demographics and things like that, so when the next triennia review comes along I would expect to see quite a big change in what that assumption is then saying and when that deficit will be paid off, I mean some authorities are now in a surplus position which in 24 years I've never seen before, so you know we signed kind of uncharted territory with that, so when the next triennia review comes along next year I would expect to see our payments into the fund be adjusted more than they would usually because of the situation with the fund balance if that helps. The chairman's allowing me to come back, so this is really good news then, and I had a figure of 30 million liability in my mind, I didn't realise it was as high as 40, now you talked about the guilts and I noticed in the report, I can't remember where, that the guilt yields are high and they're likely to drop and that over some time guilts are going to be sold off, I can't remember how many, it was a three figure million or billion, it was an awful lot of money, but that the guilt yields are going to drop, or the other thing is I did notice that we were expecting to pay this off in 16 years, about two years ago, so that would give us 14 years now, so you seem to be saying that we're going to achieve possibly a surplus much sooner than that, is that right, and how will the drop in the guilt values affect this move, thank you. So on the current trajectory that will get paid, that deficit will become a surplus potentially next year, however the actuary do have a series of experts that they use that are a lot more knowledgeable about this subject than I and the internal team are, so we rely on the actuary to deal with that, but what they will do is when they do the next training review they will then give the council a number of options, so the section 151 officer will be presented with options about how we contribute to the fund over the next three years until the following review and whether that would mean for example the council putting in less than it is currently or maintaining the level and such, so those would be discussions that then we will enter into and the section 151 officer will make that final decision on what those contribution levels will be going forward from the next review. Thank you. Are there any other comments from people? I've just got one concern which is really to do with council tax collection, which whilst we haven't got the exact figures here it might seem a high percentage is actually on the way down and the trend is on the way down. With current circumstances that worries me a little bit. I'm also concerned that generally the collection of debtors comes into this as well, because clearly if we can't get the debt in eventually it gets written off, so I am just conscious that we need to be aware of that and would just like some reassurance that the authority is working on that. Thank you. For myself and my colleagues, we're very, very concerned around the dropping council tax collection rate and the financial implications that has for us but also for the county council and the police. We collect less, they get less and as I say, it's a huge concern at the moment. The chief executive has asked for a meeting where we will be bringing forward a revised implementation plan to improve performance over and you're correct, Councillor Bunny, on both Sunview debtors and council tax debtors as well. So it is a great concern. We do need to report back, we need to report back to overview and scrutiny and performance and development. We need to report back to members more greatly in terms of committee, policy committees. But something which really I suppose we are looking into, it's a new thing we're looking into at the moment and we're trying to minimise any damage from that lower collection rate. Thank you. I think it was brought up at the last policy meeting by myself but I think it's something that is well worth that we're aware of and I think it's something that all councillors need to be conscious of, that this is an issue and of course coming up with the problems of local government finance, any shortfall could create a difficulty. It's easy to make a grand statement, we're going to collect x thousand in and spend that but if it doesn't actually come in, we've got to deal with the issue and it looks to me that we're now doing that and I'm glad to hear that we are making progress and that thing and I'm sure we will get further information back on that. Now then, unless there's anything else, I know that Councillor Dobie is prepared to propose the motion. Do you want me to read it out again or you all have it? Councillor Dobie would like to read it out. Because it's different, I'll read it out. Recommendation that members pre-scrutinise the attached unaudited statement of accounts 2023/24. Any comments of this committee will be referred to the section 151 officer and the council's external auditors KPMG. I'm willing to propose that recommendation. Have I got a seconder? Thank you Councillor Pilgrim. All those in favour? That is unanimous. Can I remind, sorry Mr Morris. We move on to the next subject. In reading through the thing last night, I started to accumulate questions about, well that's a big variance, why? And not necessarily having the time or possibly wasn't in there to find an explanation for it. Will there be another opportunity before the September meeting when of course we really say, you know, just signing it off, hopefully just signing it off, will there be another opportunity to actually raise questions about, you know, some of the detail in the actual accounts? Thank you. That's one of the questions, one of the things I was going on to. No, no, no, don't worry at all. First of all, we act before the next meeting, we will have training, which is a statutory thing and which really we would like, mandatory should I say, everybody to attend to, so that that goes through and that's an opportunity to pick up some of those sort of variance questions to ask at the next meeting. However, it does seem to me that this is an area where we do need to spend some time looking at them and passing those questions on to individuals for them to respond to at that meeting or in whichever, and that is where I think we do need to look at what we did before, previously asked one or two members of this committee to work together specifically on that particular project and then make sure that those questions are asked and perhaps we could get together beforehand to put some more on there or anyone could do that at any time I'm sure. So that's something we will be doing and I think we would be grateful, Mr Morris, if you would be prepared to be one of those members and I think perhaps another Councillor, and I know Councillor Darcelle will be scrutinising the accounts in that way as well, so we'll talk more about that outside the meeting, but thank you for your offer, much appreciated. Right then, we have passed that one on now, so let's move on to 6.5, the draft annual government statement, and I'd like to ask Lisa to speak to that. Page 206 to 12 on your pack if you need to know. Thank you, we're going to just switch around here and I'll start next, fine. So you'll find attached the draft annual government statement and the process that we go through here at West Lindsay is that we bring this one now and it then gives an opportunity between now and September for members to feed into it, to review it, to ask questions, and then we consider those and bring potentially a slightly amended version when we get to September with the financial statements. What we've done in this version is we've updated the governance framework, we've updated the risks, we've updated the internal audit opinions, we've revised all of the key achievements to reflect 23/24, and the governance action plan most importantly has also been updated to reflect the key risks of the organisation at the moment around loss of key staff, financial settlement uncertainty, we've put a bullet point around continuing to review procurement, we've got the external review of the constitution this year which will pick up those CPPRs as in the earlier report on procurement, and we also need to make sure that we cover off the implementation of the action plan from the fraud risk assessment and that will come to you in the July meeting. So that summarises the changes and updates that we've made. We will start working on the action plan essentially straight away and happy to take any questions, queries, by email, by phone or by meeting over the summer as things come up and we will update it and make sure that it's the most accurate and up to date it needs to be in September. Thank you. Have we got any comments or questions at this stage? Okay then, have I got a proposer? Thank you, Councillor Haig, a seconder? Councillor Brockway? All those in favour? Take that as carried. So if we now move on to the establishment of the Joint Committee for Devolution, pages 213 to 228 of your report pack, I'm assuming that this will be, Lisa. Thank you, Chairman. The purpose of this report, members, is to ask this committee to consider the governance around West Lindsay Council establishing a joint committee of the Lincoln districts, and ask that certain recommendations are made to the full council meeting on the 24th of June. Members will be aware of Devolution in Lincolnshire and that the three authorities of North Lincolnshire, North East Lincolnshire and the county are progressing with establishing the Mayoral Combine County Authority. As part of these new arrangements, the districts will be able to participate and have a voice and be able to nominate four members to participate in the new combined authority. The districts will also be able to nominate members to sit on the overview and scrutiny committee and also the audit committee. The mechanism that allows for the districts' authorities to do this is for us all to establish a joint committee of our districts' authorities, and this report outlines what that district joint committee will do, the documentation that accompanies that committee. Section 2.3 of the report, members outlined the scope of the joint committee and the appendices detail the proposed terms of reference and standing orders. Meetings have been held with the monitoring officers of the districts, the chief executives and the leaders, and everyone has fed into the development of these documents. I would add, members, that since the papers for this meeting have been published, I do just have one update to the terms of reference, and that is just an addition to the scope of the district joint committee to allow the joint committee to consider any matters which are of interest to the joint committee. It's just to widen the scope. So just to try and summarize, the recommendations of this report are that this committee recommends to full council the establishment of a joint committee, recommends that the leader of West Lindsay represent the authority at the joint committee, and also recommends council the proposed documents, and asks full council to delegate any further review of these documents to this governance and audit committee. The reason for recommendation four is that, obviously, the combined authority and the district joint committee will be new to everybody, and as these entities get underway, it may be that some amendments are needed to the terms of reference, and if that is the case, I would bring a report back to this committee subject to the agreement of full council on the 24th. Happy to take any comments or questions. Thank you. Councillor Haig. Just one question. What's the difference between a non-constituent member and a constituents member within this context? I can try and answer that for you, Councillor Haig. In respect of establishing the Mayoral Combined County Authority, when we talk about the constituent members, we are talking about North Lincoln's Council, North East Lincoln's Council and the county, because it is those members that are forming and will be part of the Mayoral Combined Authority. The term non-constituent members essentially relates to the members that the districts will provide, if my understanding is correct, because obviously the districts will form part of the Mayoral Combined Authority, but I will say at the meetings I have been attending, it is acknowledged and important that the districts do have a voice and do provide some representation at that table, so the way we do that is through the establishment of the joint committee. Thank you. Where do the police commissioners fit into that? In respect of the - Well I understood that one of the two police commissioners had a seat around a table. I am not sure whether that was as a constituent or a non-constituent member. To be fair, Chair, I would have to check that and get back to you, because obviously my role has just really been primarily on focusing on the district's position. But I can check that. Yes, thank you. Are there any other questions? I mean obviously all this is a bit in limbo at the moment. Right, Councillor Bowles, did you want to ask a question? Yes, thank you, Chairman. Once this is set up, Lisa, and I have got no problem with this as it is presented, my question is about how does this Council and others Councillors scrutinise and hold to account that committee and the leader? They are going to be making some very big decisions, some very important decisions for one person. What is going to be that governance process in terms of West Lindsay feeding into that? Whether, you know, if there is some argument saying there is a big discussion about housing in Gainsborough, how is that going to be made up in terms of this Council feeding into that process and what is that going to look like? Is that going to come back as another paper later on or are we just saying the leader goes to those committees and speaks on West Lindsay's behalf? What is the scrutiny process behind that and the auditing on that going forward? Thank you, Councillor Bowles. I think also it is worth bearing in mind, isn't it, that different districts have different governance rules and so it will no doubt be a different process for each of the districts so for what is happening in West Lindsay is quite important there. Thank you, Councillor Bowles. If I can try and take each point separately to answer your questions. In respect of the district joint committee, it has always been the position that the leader from each authority will attend and that the district joint committee will act collaboratively to feed up to the Mayville combined county authority. In respect of the governance that surrounds that, obviously we are seeking approval from full Council to do this. Any amendments to the documentation will be brought back to this committee. I suppose what I would suggest is that if members require any more oversight, it may be that the request this is considered by overview and scrutiny committee as the district committee evolves and progresses or one suggestion as well would be that I could bring update reports to this committee in respect of activity and what is happening at the district joint committee. But I do think the purpose of the district joint committee, to put it simply, obviously it is difficult to deal with seven different district organisations so the arrangements have provided that the way that is done is by one district joint committee ideally working collaboratively to provide comments, scrutiny, feedback members to the Mayville combined authority as it progresses. But I will be honest, it is a difficult question to answer because obviously these are new entities. Things are uncertain at the moment, obviously with the pending election and obviously the Mayville combined authority and the district joint committee will evolve to meet the needs of the area and the needs of the combined county authority. >> Can I just come back on that chair? >> Of course. >> I get what you are saying but I just think we have got to think about it a bit more long term and we have got to start thinking about what scrutiny we can put in place. I know what you say about you bringing back reports on what is happening. Yes, that has got to happen, that has got to happen so we all know what is happening and it is being fed back. We have also got to know what is on the horizon so that we, for example, I don't know, for example if there is something coming up in Councillor Brockway's ward, you would expect the leader to discuss that with Councillor Brockway. It is just common courtesy, but unless that is in black and white, there is no reason why any leader of any persuasion would do that. So I just think we have got to have a process in place where members of, you know, whatever the governance looks like in other councils, I am not interested in. I am interested in what West Lindsay do and I as a member, whether I am part of an administration or I am part of the opposition, I want to know that I can feed in and be a part of this whole process from start to finish. I don't just want some leader going and representing me. We are not a dictatorship. I want, as a member, to have feed-in at whatever level and process I might be, but I think we have got to have a process in place so we all know how that works. Thank you, Councillor Boles, Councillor Brockway. Thank you, Chairman. I have attended a number of meetings about this and I think what you are saying is very, very important. With regard to the committee, the districts, it is very worrying that there are seven districts and there are four places and I did actually make a recommendation that there should be some rotation of those places over a certain period. You can't do it every five minutes, but you also can't have some districts out in the cold, as it were, and some of the district leaders are very hungry for those positions. I think it is very, very important that we make sure, for instance, that when we have these meetings, when we have the strategic planning, there are senior officers present as well. It isn't just the leaders and senior Councillors, we have senior officers present who have it from a different perspective and I think it is very important that when we have these committees, our senior officers are there as well, not just the leaders. I would absolutely support what Councillor Boles has said and I think what Councillor Hayes raised about what is constituent and non-constituent, I think they are very different places to be and it is a concern. So I would absolutely support going forward that we look into this business of what is our access and could we possibly, if you agree, take forward the idea that these places should not be assigned on a permanent basis to given councils. Every single district should have its turn to access the combined mayoral authority. Thanks ever so much. Thank you, Chair. If I could just come back on one point as well, the district joint committee, it will be a public meeting, reports will be published in accordance with the access to information regulations, it will be run by democratic services, so things will be published in advance and obviously members will be able to attend should they wish to attend. Thank you. I am just looking at the recommendations that we have got here because I feel the debate has gone on a little bit further than the recommendations here. We are looking at, as I understand it in front of us, to approve the establishment of a district joint committee. We haven't at that point said about the rotation of membership but that might be something which I have heard mentioned as well and so on. Whether we want to put that into something today it is for us to decide. Secondly, the leader will represent us but we are now saying that perhaps we would want to see that with senior officers as well. Again, we could amend the recommendation here now or we could take that to council because after all we are not going to be making the final decision today and the terms of reference and standing orders and then any further amendments I think are just sort of standard. Did you want to say something? Just in respect of officers, the district joint committee is a committee of members so obviously whilst officers may attend in the usual way to present reports or speak to reports or answer questions, it isn't a committee where officers will be members of. They will be there in the normal ways they are required to be. Thank you. I think that really comes back down to the scrutiny of the leader and briefing of the leader and so on before they go to this and that is something which obviously council will need to pick up but it is obviously a concern put forward by Councillor Bowles and I think most Councillors would agree with that. We have got to make sure that what goes through to that combined mayoral authority is what we want them to hear, not just what one person might want to say. So are we happy to take the recommendations on the grounds that they are here to set the committee up but the actual way that the leader be briefed and so on would be something that we would suggest come through to the council for further discussion. Have I got a proposal? Councillor Dobby. Just like to ask that I did hear Lisa mentioning that she was talking about report coming here which isn't in the recommendation. Yes, Councillor Dobby, obviously that was in response to the point raised but I am more than happy to bring regular reports on the performance and how many times the district committee meets. If that is a recommendation that you would like to see in, it is something that can be done in respect of the performance of the district joint committee and how many times it is meeting, et cetera. I would like that added in if we could have. So that would go in as an extra recommendation. Do we need some wording for that? Well, I think we are going to add a recommendation and it would be something along the lines that we recommend that the monitoring officer reports regularly back to governments and audits on the performance and workings of the district joint committee. Yes, that is absolutely fine, chair. Thank you. You can choose which one goes first, workings or performance. I will leave that to you. So that is being proposed by David, sorry, Councillor Dobby as an amendment. Have we got any seconder for that? Thank you, Councillor Brockway. Now, if I just get this right, do we want to debate that or can we go straight to the vote on that? Yes, just in case anyone wanted to debate, I will do it. So all those in favour of the amendment? Those against? That is then carried. Can I then have a recommendation for the substantive motion? That is all five as it is now. Do you want me to read them? Councillor Dobby proposed, have we got a seconder? Thank you, Councillor Brockway. All those in favour of the main substantive motion now? Those against? That motion is carried. Can we also add that we recommend to the Council that we look at the way that the leader is briefed on matters concerning West Lindsay to ensure that all Councillors are involved in that process? Thank you. Right, so that moves on now to the Member Development Annual Report 2324 and I believe Ellie you are going to introduce that report. Thank you, Chairman. Yes, I am. So as you would expect from an annual report, this provides you with a summary of the member development activity between May 2023 and April 2024. You may recall that this committee received an induction review report back in September last year that was setting out a renewed approach for the member development at that time. So this report today focuses primarily on the subsequent seven months and the proposed actions for this new civic year. In essence, the renewed approach has proved successful. There has been a higher attendance rate, informal feedback has been really positive and there have been additional sessions provided which have been based on requests from Councillors. Officers have started a log of requests and requirements and you will find that as appendix one on page 240 of your report. This has been created as a living, breathing document and will be updated as sessions are held or identified. We are also building Councillor requests into it as well. There are some clear areas which do require further work. Informal feedback and comments have been really positive but have not translated into formal feedback. So we currently have no data that can be used to actually analyse whether sessions have been well received or successful. This will be a focus for the member development group and officers are also aware that the member development channel on MS Teams that is a dedicated Councillor resource has not been accessed in the way that we would have hoped it would be. So we are looking at how to improve access to the resources that are contained there. The other focus of this report is related to the member development group. Members involved in the group, yourself included, have been pivotal in continuing the improvements to the member development programme and appended to the report on page 243 are the updated terms of reference for the group. Within the report at section 5 is the proposed work programme for the coming year. Obviously this may be subject to change depending on other work streams that Councillors get involved in. Members are asked to accept this report as an accurate reflection of member development activity for 23/24 and to approve the terms of reference for the member development group and the subsequent work programme for 24/25. I am happy to take any questions, Chairman. Thank you very much. Thank you. Have we got any questions? Councillor Brockway. Thank you, Chairman. I have attended some of these and generally, you know, a lot of them have been very good. But some years ago, probably ten years ago or more, we were promised online training and it got to a point where we were told it was ready to go and we haven't got it. Now, certainly from my perspective, I would find it much easier to have some online courses that I could access when I am sitting there. I can't always get there at 6 o'clock or 6.30 but I could sit with my cup of coffee and do these online courses. The other thing is sometimes the speakers are perhaps not always aware of the speed with which they are speaking and things like this. So for people like me and possibly even Councillor Darcell, forgive me for mentioning you, Chris, it isn't always easy to hear what the people are saying, especially when they put slides and things up and I can't see the speaker. So, you know, there are considerable issues. So from a disability perspective, I would respectfully request that we do look again at these online courses, you know, so that we can access the training in different ways. But I have to say, I think the quality of the courses is significantly better than it used to be here. You'd come in and it was death by PowerPoint. They'd stand there reading the PowerPoint that you could have read in five minutes, not bothering to drive in. The quality really has gone up. I mean, so thank you ever so much for that. But if you could look at online, I'd be ever so grateful. Thank you. Thank you very much. Eddie. Thank you. Yes, absolutely. And the online training that you have referred to previously was a specific platform that was rolled out and feedback at the time was that it was really clunky and it didn't help. So this is where we have the dedicated teams channel. So all of the sessions that we do are recorded and available on the MS Teams channel. All the communication comes out. So we've got the dedicated member development officer, Claire Stockdale. All of the communications will come out from Claire. She sends links round for every session. There are transcripts available on the teams channel. There's a question and answer function on the teams channel, but it has not been taken up in the way that we had hoped. So we are looking at running a teams training session that will help people with the functionality of teams and also the focus of that teams channel where everything can be accessed. What we will then be doing, I'm not sure if I've mentioned it in this report because I was also prepping for the next report that's coming. Once the teams channel is up and running and we have sort of got that nailed, it is within the member development groups remit to look at subsequent online options, whether that is the same provider but rebuilding some of the sort of landing pages or if we actually look out at other providers. Of course. There's good news that you're looking at the online. To be absolutely honest, I don't want to be negative at all because the quality of what you put forward is really good. I really don't want to sit there reading transcripts and things like that. I just want to look at the course. So what I need is a fully online course. I don't -- also, if the whole thing is online, it means I still have to listen to it and still might not be able to hear properly. So the problem remains, whether it's recorded or live. But if we could look at actual online courses so I can dip in and do my course and go away, you know what I mean? I think you'd get an increased uptake. Thank you ever so much. >> Thank you, Councillor Brockwick. Elle, did you want to come back on that? >> I did just want to come back on the feedback comments as well from Councillor Mrs. Brockway. So in terms of speed of speaking, accessibility, absolutely. They are -- most of the sessions or a lot of the sessions have been provided by organizations, trained professionals. So they're possibly more used to speaking clearly. However, this would be where I ask for the feedback to be provided to us. So we have -- I mean, contained within the report, I can't remember the page number, there is a table that shows the feedback forms that have or have not been returned. So anything like that, please, please, please put it through to us and we'll know then what to do for next time. Thank you. >> I do think that the accessibility is very important and it's easy when we're doing the feedback to forget our colleagues who might not always have been able to be on the course for whatever reason it might be. Yet that's information we could ourselves look at. So I think it's important that the officers take that away as a group thing already. I have a question about the numbers attending. I do know that the numbers have gone up, but -- and it's very good looking at numbers, but when you actually start putting those against individual names, which I'm not going to ask now, I do think there are still some rather large gaps where people -- it's the same people going on and the same people listening and the same following it up online. So I do think that perhaps we do need to get into those members who have not been involved to understand that. And I also think it's important to point out to potential counselors -- because I've picked this up this last year -- that being a counselor, yes, there's work outside in your constituency, there's attending meetings, but there's also an undertaking to do a certain amount of training. And sometimes on subjects you might not think about, which can be of use -- and I'm just thinking, for instance, right off the top of my head, the parenting one, for instance, is very important, corporate parenting. And I was only talking to somebody yesterday who was a foster carer who was not aware that they were entitled to membership or free access to the sports centers, which I did know about. But because I was on the parenting committee two years ago, or training two years ago, I picked up as being an important point. Have we got any other comments? Counselor Dobbie? Yeah. Looking at this, I had noticed that the GDPR training that I went and did that was bespoke that Jeanette McGarry had got me to go and do because I had had to do it because of the issue that I'd had over the Highfield Estate. I did that. That was bespoke training. It was really good. The quality was really good. But it doesn't seem to be in -- because it was a one-off for me, you didn't include in the figures, okay. But it was done. I did give feedback. I thought it was really good. And I thought the bespoke training that occurs under circumstances like that that are needed are very beneficial. Thank you. Thank you, Counselor Dobbie. That actually rises me into my next point very smoothly. Thank you. I am aware, as I think most members are or ought to be, that there are monies available for individuals to go on training which might not be within the members development group. It could be conferences. It could be training outside the program put together by ourselves. Now, I don't know how many people have been involved on that and what sort of courses have been involved. And I think it would be very useful if we could have some information on that, on the courses and training events which have been done external to the Council, and if that would be possible to be brought back to this committee. Thank you, Counselor Money. Can I just confirm. So you'd like a list for the municipal year perhaps of members that have attended different conferences and training events for completion? That's right, because I do know that one or two of Councillors, including one on this meeting, had wanted to go to something and it was felt that there wasn't money available or whatever. So it would be useful to know what we are getting and also what feedback we can get from that information generally to the Council. Moving that in, are we happy then to go to a vote on this report? The two recommendations are that we accept the report as an accurate reflection of member development activity for 2023/24 and that we also are happy to accept the terms of reference for the group and subsequent work programme for the 2024/2025 civic year be approved. We have already started that year, so it would be helpful that we do accept them, though we can always change them if we need to do a little tweak. So have I got a proposer for that? Thank you, Councillor Dobby. A seconder? Thank you, Councillor Haig. All those in favour? Any against? Thank you. So that now brings us to the committee work plan. Amazing. Thank you, Chairman. It is just for noting the work plan. Thank you. Mr Morris. Following the discussion we have had about the financial documents, I call them in the general sense, there is nothing in July or September which suggests that we are indeed reviewing them. I don't think we have got the training in yet, but does anyone else want to help mention on that? Or is it something which we need to look at and make sure goes out? My point on this was, that's it, thank you. My point is that if we are going to separate the training from the actual signing off day in September, there is only the July meeting, unless we have an additional meeting which is often poorly attended, in July to actually do the training. I am not sure whether we have got enough days to organise ourselves. What we will do is we will provide a list of dates to all members of this committee. The training doesn't have to be on a day of governance and audit committee, it could be on a different day. We will circle some dates, Claire Stockdale will do that for us, and then we will find out what is an agreed date and set it up for that. I understand you don't want it for the same day as the September governance and audit committee, that is fine. But we can look at other dates and we can talk to Rachpal from KPMG as well to see when he is available. Thank you. Then we can take it from there on how we might have a further brief before the actual meeting in September. Are there any other comments? In which case we will take that as noted. And as no other business, I will bring the meeting to an end just after 3.30. Thank you very much for your attendance and have a good journey home.