Issue - meetings

A joint report of the Chief Executive, Director of Finance and Director of Legal and Governance Services was presented to set out the key activities, progress and impact of the Corporate Governance Improvement Plan and activity in response to the Section 24 recommendations made by the Council’s External Auditors, since last reported to Committee on 14 December 2023.

Alongside the activity that had been delivered, the report also set out the impact actions had had on the measures of success that had been identified within the Corporate Governance Improvement Plan and Section 24 response plan.

Overall performance in relation to delivery of activity across the two improvement plans (excluding activity not yet planned to start and not due to be delivered yet) was set out at paragraph 5.2 of the report.   92% of planned activity had either been delivered or was on-track for delivery in relation to the Corporate Governance Improvement Plan, with seven planned activities measuring as off-track. 

87.5% of activity in relation to the Section 24 delivery plan was on-track or had been delivered, with six activities showing as off-track.  The report set out the detail of the delivery plan activity, alongside supporting measures of success that were in place to assess the impact of activity.  Key activities and measures of success were shown in the Appendix to the submitted report.

Over the next four weeks, an exercise would be undertaken to refresh the content of the Corporate Governance Improvement Plan to capture additional key milestones that could now be articulated following delivery of initial actions in some milestones, therefore future reporting figures would be altered, however the changes would be outlined within reports.

Members raised several issues with regard to the presentation of the information and Officers agreed to amend the format.

On the overall position, the Chief Executive commented that he was pleased with progress and wanted to focus on the actions and to ensure completion as quickly as possible.   In relation to the Best Value Notice issued in January 2023, this had recently been extended for a further six months.  The Government reserved the right to put statutory intervention in place but had allowed the Council to continue addressing the issues previously raised in a timely manner.  Work was progressing with the Independent Interim Advisory Board (IIAB) to ensure the Council’s financial stability and was also focussing on efficiencies in process, IT and services at lower cost.

AGREED as follows that the:

1.         progress against the Corporate Governance Improvement Plan and Section 24 Action Plan was noted.

2.         Best Value Notice extension would be an agenda item at the next Audit Committee meeting.

3.         Amendments would be made to the current format of the reports to ensure they were more accessible to read.