Meeting documents

To consider the attached report.

Contact Officer:  Kate Mulhearn (01296) 585724

The Annual Governance Statement (AGS) for Aylesbury Vale District Council, that would be signed by the Leader of the Council and the Chief Executive when approved by the Audit Committee, formed part of the Council’s formal accounts for the financial year 2017-18.

The AGS had been prepared in accordance with the CIPFA Code of Practice on Local Authority Accounting and following the principles set out in the CIPFA Delivering Good Governance in Local Government Framework (2016).

The statement explained how AVDC had complied with the principles of corporate governance and also met the requirements of regulations 4(2) and 4(3) of the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2011, which required all relevant bodies to "conduct a review at least once in a year of the effectiveness of its system of internal control" and to prepare a statement on internal control "in accordance with proper practices".

Members were advised that the assurance gathering process for preparing the Statement was based on the management and internal control framework of the Council and, in particular, on the independent report of the Council’s Corporate Governance Manager presented to this meeting.  The assurance framework included reference to the sources of assurance obtained from management.  This included the new service risk assurance process which had been reported in more detail to the Committee.

A major focus of focus during the year had been preparation for the new General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) which came into force in May 2018.  A programme of work had commenced in November 2017 to ensure any significant gaps in terms of compliance with the new regulations had been full addressed.

During the year, internal audit reports had highlighted a number of weaknesses that needed to be reported in the AGS, including on the "high risk" reports issued for General Ledger and Housing Benefits.  As noted last year, there was also a general theme relating to a lack of consistently reported and monitored management information.  Two new posts had been created during the restructure to support enhance Business Intelligence at a corporate level and progress had been made on capturing and reporting Corporate level performance indicators.  Capacity in the finance team had been strengthened to enable better and more timely reporting of financial information.  At a service level, improvements had also been made with better system reporting and monitoring by manager.

The AGS also included information on Company Governance in relation to Aylesbury Vale Broadband, which had led to an independent review being undertaken and reported to the Audit Committee in June 2018.  The report had highlighted some good practice and made a series of 22 recommendations, drawing upon lessons that could be learnt.  The recommendations would be taken forward to further strengthen the governance arrangements over current and future commercial interests.

Members were informed that, while AVDC had responsibility for conducting, at least annually, a review of effectiveness of its governance framework including the system of internal control, it had been decided to defer doing this until early in 2019 as there had been a number of Members that had recently come onto the Audit Committee.

Having critically reviewed the Annual Governance Statement 2017-18 and the robustness of the Council’s governance arrangements, it was

RESOLVED –

(1)          That the content of the Annual Governance Statement 2017-18, be noted.

(2)          That the Annual Governance Statement 2017-18 be approved for inclusion in the Council’s Statement of Accounts for 2017-18.