Issue - meetings

The Head of Policy, Communications and Governance introduced her report setting out the Annual Governance Statement for 2020/21 and a refreshed Local Code of Corporate Governance for approval.  It was noted that:

·  The Annual Governance Statement was a review of the Council’s governance arrangements for the last financial year.  The purpose of the review was to provide assurance that the Council’s governance arrangements were adequate and operating effectively and to identify actions which were planned to ensure effective governance in the future.

·  Overall, the Officers could confirm that the Council had the appropriate governance systems and processes in place.  Progress had been made against last year’s Action Plan; however, the review had identified additional actions to ensure that good standards of governance were maintained.

·  The most significant governance issues still related to COVID-19, particularly in relation to emergency planning, financial management and ways of working.

·  Compliance with the new Financial Management Code had been assessed and as a result several measures had been identified to improve transparency and reporting for financial information and these had been included in the Action Plan for 2021/22.

·  There were also actions relating to significant corporate risks, progress against the Data Protection Action Plan, raising awareness of the Local Code of Corporate Governance and the Nolan Principles, and the change to an Executive Model of Governance.

·  The Local Code of Corporate Governance had been refreshed this year to reflect changes regarding evidence arising from new ways of working (for example, the annual appraisal process had been replaced by monthly check-ins with staff looking at and documenting performance against targets) and there were some other minor updates.

In response to a question, the Head of Policy, Communications and Governance undertook to refer in the Annual Governance Statement to how the Borough Council tries to promote good practice/high standards of conduct within Parishes through the role of the Monitoring Officer in dealing with Code of Conduct complaints and encouraging all Parish Councils to adopt the new Code of Conduct once updated.

RESOLVED:  That subject to the amendments suggested during the discussion, the Annual Governance Statement for 2020/21 and the refreshed Local Code of Corporate Governance, attached as Appendices A and B respectively to the report of the Head of Policy, Communications and Governance, be approved.