Agenda item

A joint report of the Chief Executive, Director of Finance and Director of Legal and Governance Services was presented that set out the key activities and progress since an update was last provided.  The report also provided an update on activity in response to the Section 24 recommendations made by the Council’s External Auditors.

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.  The report also detailed a baseline of measures of success to be used to assess the impact of the Section 24 actions.   This information had also been presented to full Council on 29 November 2023.

For the current reporting period, six of the workstreams were on target in terms of activity, as per timescales set out in the corporate Governance Improvement Plan, and four were off target.  Seven measures of success had seen positive movement, since initial baselining and one had worsened slightly. 

Details of the key activities within the governance improvement plan that had been delivered since progress was last reported to Council, in-line with planned timescales, were provided at paragraph 17 of the submitted report.

At the December meeting of the Independent Improvement Advisory Board it was agreed that the Council would develop a set of targets for the measures of success going forward to assess not only direction of travel but to also set out the goals for each measure of success across both the Corporate Governance Improvement Plan and the Section 24 Measures of Success. Information on these would be included in future reporting.

Detailed delivery milestone plans had been developed to underpin the workstream activities within the improvement plan.  Where slippage occurred to individual milestones but the overarching end date for the

workstream activity was not impacted, no escalation or change control would be required and it could be assumed that any required mitigation would be put in place at an operational level.  Where there was impact on achieving the intended measure of success or overarching end date of workstream activity, a change control would be proposed for noting.  On that basis and for this reporting period, there were no change controls presented.

A Member asked whether minutes of meetings of the Independent Improvement Advisory Board (IIAB) were available for public inspection.  It was highlighted that a summary of information requested and major action points arising from the IIAB was attached at Appendix 3 to the submitted report.  All Members had also been invited to meet with the IIAB.  The first scheduled report from the IIAB would be presented to the Executive on 17 January 2024.

An update on the key activities related to delivery of the Section 24 Action Plan since the last Audit Committee meeting was provided along with some  changes to delivery dates.

Appendices 1 and 2 to the submitted report provided details of key performance indicators and measures of success against the Corporate Governance Improvement and Section 24 Reports.

AGREED as follows that the:

1.         Information provided was received and noted.

2.         Progress made in relation to the Corporate Governance Improvement Plan and the Section 24 action plan and the planned next steps was noted.