Issue - meetings

To consider and to provide feedback on the draft Annual Governance Statement for 2021/22 as set out in Annex 1.

The Interim Head of Finance gave an overview of the draft Annual Governance Statement 2021/22, explaining that it complied with Regulations, whereby the Council was required to prepare and publish a statement on its internal control and governance arrangements as part of annual end-of-year processes.

It was also good practice that the statement be endorsed by the member body that has responsibility for oversight of these arrangements; in this Council this was the Audit Committee. The covering report explained that the statement drew on several sources of information on how the Council was managed.

It was stated that the SIAP had carried out a review of the Council’s arrangements for compiling the Annual Governance Statement and the outcome was a rating of substantial assurance, indicating that the Council followed good practice and guidance and the Statement was complete in terms of the breadth of the topics it covered and the scope of the information that was presented.

The final version of the Annual Governance Statement 2021/22 would be presented and published as part of the statement of accounts.

It was noted that this was also an important source of background and context for this Committee to consider because it provided an overview of the overall control assurance framework that was in place to ensure that the Council was well-run, and risks were managed effectively.

It was explained that two key elements were yet to be finalised, one of which was finalised at this meeting (SIAP’s audit opinion 2021/22); the second would be the external Auditor's opinion for 2021/22 which would be available once they concluded their audit of the statement of accounts.

Two governance matters were highlighted relating to the statement of accounts for 2020/21 and a legal dispute relating to one of the Council’s companies.

With regard to the statement of accounts, the Chief Finance Officer explained that proactive steps to address historic issues with underlying fixed asset records that supported the accounts had been undertaken to ensure compliance with the Code of Practice. It was noted that the auditors were scheduled to commence the audit shortly.

The second matter related to a joint venture that the Monitoring Officer and senior officers were acting on in consultation with Lead Members; it was not possible to provide more information at this stage as it was currently subject to legal privilege.

Following a member’s question regarding the anticipated timing of the external auditor’s 2020/21 and 2021/22 ISA 260 reports, it was explained that ordinarily the 2020/21 report would be considered at approximately this time of year. However, as explained, this had been delayed due to taking additional time to resolve historic fixed asset record issues. The 2020/21 report would therefore be presented later this year when the audit was complete; followed by the 2021/22 report as reporting returned to the usual timetable.

RESOLVED that the report be noted.