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 2018-19.

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 a programme of work to ensure that any significant gaps in terms of compliance with the new General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) which had came into force in May 2018 were fully addressed.  An explanation was also provided of the challenges in ensuring data compliance when moving forward into the new unitary council, for example, all payrolls would be moving to SAP, combining of asset registers, and putting in place a set of data sharing agreements across many different areas.

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 Commercial Waste.  Progress made in addressing outstanding issues from these reviews was monitored by the Audit Committee through its oversight of internal audit work.

During the year the agreed actions arising from audit reports have been kept under review by Internal Audit and regular reports on overdue actions had been provided to the Audit Committee.  A total of 113 audit actions had been completed during the year and progress had been made to address all outstanding actions.  There were no significant issues to report regarding the follow up of any audit recommendations.

Significant improvements have been made in some areas highlighted in the previous year’s AGS including in Housing Benefits, providing Management Information and Company Governance.  This work was detailed in the AGS report.

Having critically reviewed the Annual Governance Statement 2018-19 and the robustness of the Council’s governance arrangements, it was

RESOLVED –

(1)          That the content of the Annual Governance Statement 2018-19, be noted.

(2)          That the Annual Governance Statement 2018-19 be approved for inclusion in the Council’s Statement of Accounts for 2018-19.