Meeting documents

RESOLVED –

That Councillor Irwin be elected Chairman of the Committee for the ensuing year.

RESOLVED –

That Councillor Newcombe be elected Vice-Chairman of the Committee for the ensuing year.

To approve as correct records the Minute of the meeting held on 26 March, 2018, copy attached as an appendix.

RESOLVED –

That the minutes of the meeting held on 26 March, 2018, be approved as a correct record.

To consider the attached report.

Contact Officer: Kate Mulhearn (01296) 585724

This Committee had previously received reports into the governance arrangements of Aylesbury Vale Broadband (AVB) - in March 2017 and September 2017. A number of weaknesses had been highlighted and the Committee had approved a series of recommendations to addressthem.

On 6 December 2017 a Motion was agreed at full Council which tasked the Audit Committee with a further detailed audit of the governance arrangements over AVB culminating in the decision to sell AVB assets.  The wording of the Council Motion was as follows:-

"(1)      That this Council will honour the commitment given by the Leader of the Council at the General Purposes Committee to review the position culminating in the decision to sell AVB and introduce a suitable mechanism for keeping all Members of the Council informed of the Council’s commercial activities.

(2)       That the Audit Committee be tasked with a detailed audit of the operation of AVB, as far as practicable within the timescales set out in the original Motion and to keep as much information as is possible in the public domain.

(3)       That the audit of AVB be undertaken by the Council’s externalised internal audit team (BDO) as they have experience of the governance of company structures.

(4)       That a brief for carrying out the review of AVB be agreed by Group Leaders, the Council’s Head of Internal Audit (Corporate Governance Manager), a representative from BDO and the Chairman of the Audit Committee, with Group Leaders receiving a draft of the report prior to its submission to the Audit Committee, any such meetings involving Group Leaders to be chaired by the Deputy Leader of the Council.

(5)       That any meeting of the Audit Committee convened to consider the report findings be open to all Members of the Council to attend and at the discretion of the Audit Committee Chairman, to participate in the discussions (although they would not be able to vote).

(6)       That insofar as the other commercial undertakings of the Council are concerned, reports on their activities be brought forward at regular intervals to the relevant Scrutiny Committee."

The scope of work for the review of AVB had been discussed with the Leaders of all political parties on 8 January and subsequently the Terms of Reference had been agreed at a meeting of the Audit Committee on 22 January 2018. (The Terms of Reference had been included as an appendix to the BDO report).

In accordance with the Motion, the review had commenced on 31 January. The Motion required that the report be issued by 30 April 2018. However, there had been somelate requests for interview and additional submissions made during May which, in order to consider fully this information, had resulted in a delay to the timing for completion of the report.

The review had been conducted by Mr Adam Leeder, a Senior Consultant from BDO.  Mr Leeder had been given free access to all AVB and Council documentation and information throughout the course of thereview.

When the Terms of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.