Meeting documents
- Meeting of ', Audit Committee, Monday 27th November 2017 6.30 pm (Item 8.)
To consider the attached report.
Contact Officer: Kate Mulhearn (01296) 585724
Minutes:
The Audit Committee had a role to monitor the effectiveness of risk management and internal control across the Council. As part of discharging this role the committee was asked to review the Corporate Risk Register (CRR). The CRR provided evidence of a risk aware and risk managed organisation and reflected the risks that were on the current radar for Commercial Board. Some of the risks were not dissimilar to those faced across other local authorities.
Since the previous Audit Committee meeting in September 2017 the following risks had changed:
|
Risk Reference |
Change |
Comment |
|
Sectors do not deliver the required savings and efficiencies identified in the Commercial AVDC programme. |
Closed |
The Commercial AVDC programme closed at the end of September 2017. Subsequently a sector by sector review of planned savings, achieved to date and forecast for future years had been undertaken. Structures were in place to exceed the £6m target set for the programme by 2020 – achieving £2.2m in 2017/18 and delivery of £3.8m by 2021. This included a headcount reduction from 471 to 426 (around 10%). Future savings targets would form the basis of the MTFP and annual budget setting and therefore captured in MTFP (risk #1). |
|
The Council's approach to commercialisation and income generation does not produce the income needed. |
Closed |
The structure is now in place to support commercial/income generating activity and income / cost recovery targets are factored into the MTFP and annual budget process, therefore included in MTFP (risk #1) |
|
Loss of key staff / failure to recruit / reliance on agency staff has negative impact on service delivery during time of change |
Closed |
To date, 88 people had left the Council during the course of the Commercial AVDC Programme, comprising 25 settlements, 38 voluntary redundancies, 23 compulsory redundancies and 2 resignations. This left 110 roles to fill externally (around a third of all posts in the new structure, excluding drivers and loaders). The majority of these posts had now been recruited to; however at the time of writing there were still 14 Technical Specialist vacancies, of which 8 were in Planning, and which were proving challenging to fill. This had been captured in a new specific risk (#8). |
|
Business Intelligence (customer insight & performance data) is not sufficiently robust to support effective decisions. |
Closed |
The Business Intelligence team was in place and progress had been made on reporting Connected Vision, Financial, Sector and operational dashboards. The focus was currently on management information with a "roadmap" in place to deliver more strategic business insight overtime. It was no longer considered a corporate level risk and, as such, progress was being monitored at an operational level. |
|
1) Fail to achieve the Medium Term Financial Plan. Annual sector budgets are not delivered. |
New (High) |
Savings, efficiencies and income identified through the Commercial AVDC programme had been factored into sector budgets and would form the basis of the MTFP. Monitoring would be undertaken through established processes with oversight at Strategic Board and Cabinet level. Risk remains high due to ongoing austerity measures and budget pressures. |
|
8) Fail to recruit Technical Professional Specialists (Planning, IT, Property). Reliance on use of consultants/agency and not effectively managed. |
New (High) |
In key specialist areas there was risk of negative impact on service delivery. Ongoing financial cost of agency staff. This replaces the general risk of loss of staff throughout the restructure programme, with mitigating actions specific to the business areas affected. |
|
4) Fail to deliver the Property Investment Strategy |
New (TBA) |
Work had started to develop processes to deliver the strategy. The recruitment of Commercial Property Manager was ongoing. The assessment would be updated as the team and processes developed. |
|
6) Waste Transformation Project fails to deliver commercial, customer, H&S, Environmental objectives |
New (High) |
This was a significant, high profile piece of work being undertaken to support efficient delivery of services and income generation into the future. There would be financial and reputation risks if project failed to deliver key objectives, whilst day to day operational activities needed to ensure H&S and Environmental compliance. |
|
10) Health & Safety - Non-compliance with Fire and Health and Safety legislation |
High à Moderate |
Revised H&S Policy & Strategy was approved Sept 2017, corporate oversight board in place and staff H&S consultative committee established post restructure. |
|
20) Failure to effectively engage with members and the community around the Council's vision and strategy |
High à Moderate |
A project had started around Member engagement, which would also be supported by Connected Vision. A Communications strategy was being developed. |
Members challenged robustly some of the assumptions made in the CRR, both in specific and general terms.
Members requested further information and were informed:-
(i) Risk 5 (Council owned or partly owned companies) – that in light of recent developments regarding AVB it was still believed that the overall risk rating for this risk was correct. As the situation with AVB progressed then it might be appropriate to undertake a ‘lessons learnt’ review in due course.
(ii) Risk 8 (Reliance on use of consultants / agency staff) – that the Council had set up a review group to monitor ongoing compliance with the IR35 (Intermediaries legislation), particularly given the current reliance on consultants / agency staff in some areas of the Council. Active recruitment was ongoing to recruit permanent staff to all posts in the new structure so that the reliance on contractors / consultants could be minimised.
(iii) Risk 14 (Major partnerships / Significant council contractors) – that any risk associated with the Silverstone Park Enterprise Zone Infrastructure funding, that had been approved at the October 2017 Council meeting, were covered within this risk.
Members asked that the information against risk number 14 be expanded to include specific mention to any risks associated with the 3 Enterprise Zones.
(iv) Universal Credit – that planning was being done regarding Universal Credit, that was due to be introduced into the Vale in June 2018.
Action point: Risk 8 – to ensure that the Council was monitoring and complying with the legislation regarding IR35.
Action point: Risk 14 – update the risk to include Enterprise Zones.
Members also commented that all new ventures had a high likelihood of failure and, as such, should have an initial Inherent risk rating of High or Extreme until they were properly assessed.
RESOLVED –
That the current position of the Corporate Risk Register and identified Action Points be noted.
Supporting documents:
PDF 183 KB