Audit and Governance Committee - Wednesday 28 January 2026, 10:00am - Buckinghamshire Council Webcasting

Audit and Governance Committee
Wednesday, 28th January 2026 at 10:00am 

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  1. Cllr Matthew Walsh
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  1. Leslie Ashton - Democratic Services Officer
  2. Cllr Matthew Walsh
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  1. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  2. Cllr Matthew Walsh
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  1. Chris Ward - Senior Member Services and Governance Officer
  2. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  3. Cllr Martin Tett
  4. Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer
  5. Cllr Martin Tett
  6. Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer
  7. Cllr Matthew Walsh
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  1. Mark Preston - Assistant Chief Finance Officer P,P&P
  2. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  3. Cllr Martin Tett
  4. Mark Preston - Assistant Chief Finance Officer P,P&P
  5. Cllr Martin Tett
  6. Mark Preston - Assistant Chief Finance Officer P,P&P
  7. Cllr Martin Tett
  8. Mark Preston - Assistant Chief Finance Officer P,P&P
  9. Cllr Martin Tett
  10. Mark Preston - Assistant Chief Finance Officer P,P&P
  11. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  12. Cllr Alex Collingwood
  13. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  14. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  15. Cllr Chris Poll
  16. Mark Preston - Assistant Chief Finance Officer P,P&P
  17. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  18. Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer
  19. Cllr Matthew Walsh
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  1. Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager
  2. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  3. Cllr Simon Rouse
  4. Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager
  5. Cllr Simon Rouse
  6. Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager
  7. Jo Baschnonga - Service Director for Major Projects
  8. Cllr Simon Rouse
  9. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  10. Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager
  11. Cllr Simon Rouse
  12. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  13. Cllr Alex Collingwood
  14. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  15. Cllr Martin Tett
  16. Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager
  17. Cllr Martin Tett
  18. Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager
  19. Cllr Martin Tett
  20. Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager
  21. Cllr Martin Tett
  22. Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager
  23. Cllr Martin Tett
  24. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  25. Cllr Alex Collingwood
  26. Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager
  27. Cllr Alex Collingwood
  28. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  29. Cllr Chris Poll
  30. Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager
  31. Cllr Chris Poll
  32. Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager
  33. Cllr Chris Poll
  34. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  35. Cllr Simon Rouse
  36. Jo Baschnonga - Service Director for Major Projects
  37. Cllr Simon Rouse
  38. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  39. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  40. Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager
  41. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  42. Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager
  43. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  44. Cllr Martin Tett
  45. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  46. Cllr Alex Collingwood
  47. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  48. Cllr Martin Tett
  49. Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager
  50. Cllr Martin Tett
  51. Cllr Matthew Walsh
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  1. Cllr Alan Sherwell
  2. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  3. Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer
  4. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  5. Cllr Alex Collingwood
  6. Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer
  7. Cllr Matthew Walsh
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  1. Cllr Alex Collingwood
  2. Cllr Matthew Walsh
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  1. Cllr Alex Collingwood
  2. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  3. Cllr Alex Collingwood
  4. Cllr Matthew Walsh
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  1. Cllr Robert Carington
  2. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  3. Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
  4. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  5. Cllr Martin Tett
  6. Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
  7. Cllr Martin Tett
  8. Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
  9. Cllr Martin Tett
  10. Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
  11. Cllr Martin Tett
  12. Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
  13. Cllr Martin Tett
  14. Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
  15. Cllr Martin Tett
  16. Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
  17. Cllr Martin Tett
  18. Cllr Robert Carington
  19. Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
  20. Cllr Robert Carington
  21. Cllr Martin Tett
  22. Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
  23. Cllr Alex Collingwood
  24. Cllr Martin Tett
  25. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  26. Cllr Robert Carington
  27. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  28. Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
  29. Cllr Alex Collingwood
  30. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  31. Cllr Chris Poll
  32. Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
  33. Cllr Chris Poll
  34. Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
  35. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  36. Cllr Chris Poll
  37. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  38. Cllr Chris Poll
  39. Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
  40. Cllr Chris Poll
  41. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  42. Cllr Chris Poll
  43. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  44. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  45. Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
  46. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  47. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  48. Cllr Alan Sherwell
  49. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  50. Cllr Alex Collingwood
  51. Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
  52. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  53. Cllr Alex Collingwood
  54. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  55. Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
  56. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  57. Cllr Martin Tett
  58. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  59. Cllr Martin Tett
  60. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  61. Cllr Martin Tett
  62. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  63. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  64. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  65. Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
  66. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  67. Cllr Alex Collingwood
  68. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  69. Cllr Alex Collingwood
  70. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  71. Cllr Martin Tett
  72. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  73. Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer
  74. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  75. Cllr Martin Tett
  76. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  77. Cllr Chris Poll
  78. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  79. Cllr Robert Carington
  80. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  81. Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer
  82. Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
  83. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  84. Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
  85. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  86. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  87. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  88. Cllr Alex Collingwood
  89. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  90. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  91. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  92. Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer
  93. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  94. Cllr Chris Poll
  95. Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer
  96. Cllr Matthew Walsh
  97. Cllr Martin Tett
  98. Cllr Matthew Walsh
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  1. Webcast Finished

Cllr Matthew Walsh - 0:00:00
Good morning everybody and welcome to January's meeting of the Audit and Governance Committee
for those joining us on webcast.
A special warm welcome this morning.
Agenda item one which are apologies.
Thank you Chairman.

1 Apologies

Leslie Ashton - Democratic Services Officer - 0:00:19
We've received apologies from Councillors Chilton, Clarke and Dixon and we've been advised
that Councillor Sherwell may arrive late whilst Councillor Ralston will need to leave at 11
o 'clock.
Okay thank you very much for those.

2 Declarations of interest

Cllr Matthew Walsh - 0:00:30
And moving on to agenda item two which is declarations of interest the members have any declarations Councillor Wilson. I
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 0:00:39
Am the parish council representative on the Thames like preservation trust advisory group, which has never actually met
Thank you very much for providing that information

3 Minutes

Cllr Matthew Walsh - 0:00:52
Okay, now the members only of his further declarations will move on to the minutes to approve as a correct record
record of the minutes of the meeting held on the 12th of November. Are members content with those

4 Annual Governance Statement 2025/26 - approach

minutes? Thank you very much. Moving on to the annual governance statements 2025 to 2026.
Over to you Chris. Thank you Chairman. So the annual governance statement is a requirement
Chris Ward - Senior Member Services and Governance Officer - 0:01:21
to reflect on the past year of governance. The Chartered Institute Public Finance and
Council see guidance suggests that the annual governance statement should contain an
opinion on the effectiveness signed by the chief executive and the leader of the council an
assessment of governance effectiveness with examples a
conclusion from the chief finance officer and the monitoring officer and
An action plan for 26 27 along with an update from the previous year's plan
the committee is asked to endorse the proposed approach in the
agenda for the production of the annual governance statement for 26 -27. We'll
write to members of the committee for their views and input into the AGS
following this meeting and then it's proposed that a draught of the AGS be
brought to March's committee meeting. So we'd welcome any comments from the
committee on the approach at this stage.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 0:02:15
Members?
Council Tett?
Cllr Martin Tett - 0:02:23
The only one I had was, is there anything in the guide to governance or any of the external
bodies that were consulted that we've decided not to include?
I just want to know if there's any, if you like, exemptions from their recommendations
for, and if so, for whatever reason.
Could you tell us?
Thank you, Chairman.
No, there isn't.
Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer - 0:02:44
The annual governance statement is a rather free document,
so as long as it contains the essentials, which as my colleague Chris has just mentioned,
in the guidance of the opinion and the action plan,
this council is free to include what it wishes and to omit what it wishes.
It's just a matter of focusing on what this council considers to have been its storey of governance over the last year.
It's your choice to choose those elements of it.
And if I could just try the same question again just to make sure I get...
Cllr Martin Tett - 0:03:09
So there is nothing that's been recommended that's been omitted.
I know we can pick and choose what we include and exclude,
but is there anything that's been excluded that members of this committee should just be aware of?
I'm not questioning whether it was right to exclude it, I just want to know what was excluded and why.
Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer - 0:03:29
Chairman, in which case, to answer that question very simply, nothing has been excluded.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 0:03:34
Any other further questions from members?
No, okay.
Just to follow up on the conversation that the vice chair and I had, obviously, we would
appreciate on behalf of this committee, the committee having some dialogue at some point
with the leader and the chief executive before they officially sign this off.
So if we can make the necessary arrangements for that, please.
No, thank you, Chairman.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Okay.
With no further questions, is the committee happy to endorse the approach for the AGS
25?
Great.
That is great.
Thank you very much.

5 Dormant Trust Funds Update

Moving on to agenda item five, which is the dormant trust funds update.
Over to you, Mark.
Thank you, Chairman.
Mark Preston - Assistant Chief Finance Officer P,P&P - 0:04:16
This paper is an update on the dormant charities.
I believe that previously it was promised that an update would come to this committee.
As agreed with the previous Chair.
This is reduced to be the committee update of where we are with that. The group one
charities I think we're all aware of in terms of Farnham Park and
Higginson Park Charities so they're well documented on the accounts come here and
think there's good oversight of those. The second group of charities were
largely school prize funds and small funds that were held on behalf of those
schools so we've done a thorough exercise going through all of those and
identified actually the success of schools for the funds that are held. I
think what we found was that some of the trusts had previously been transferred
to those schools but there were some funds that were actually still held by
the council so what we've done is we had a look at that identified those
funds and we'll be transferring those funds to the relevant schools.
There's just two schools where we couldn't actually find a successor
to school for that.
So what we're looking to propose is the transfer of those funds
to a relevant charity that supports Backingshire Schools
as a whole.
The major charities are set out in the report,
really, in terms of where there are still decisions to be made.
So we've got the Green Park Trust,
where there's no funds held, but it's regarding the land,
some of the land at Green Park.
And there's the Griffith, Lincolnshire, and Thomas Trust,
which is a combination of three older trusts that used to be held.
The charitable objectives for that aren't being fully met because actually
the objectives of those three charities were around providing a free museum,
providing a free library service, both of which are not in the locations of where
they were when the trusts were established.
There's memorial gardens, which still exist and
are being maintained by the council
on an ongoing basis for that.
And the Semcite Preservation Trust is the other one
that was mentioned by Councillor Wilson earlier.
So let's look at that in terms of what the next stages are
for those trusts.
And we will take a report to the Shareholder
and Trust Committee in March to consider those proposals.
and then obviously with a view to take it through
the decision making process of whatever is agreed
as a firm proposition to go forward for those trusts.
I welcome any questions or comments.
Council Wilson and Council Bissette.
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 0:07:06
Yeah, the avoidance of doubt to my colleague.
The group hasn't, the advisory group hasn't met
since I was appointed by the parish council last May.
I have a quick question.
So the paragraph 4 .10 refers to two parcels of land.
And I think one of the questions is the trust
has the spade oak wharf in it, and then there's a meadow.
And it's my understanding,
which is probably why you're identifying costs
or income associated with that,
that there were some grazing rights
that the County Council, I think, had on the grazing meadow,
and there should be some funds associated with that somewhere,
probably from the Legacy County Council.
So that would be one of the areas that I would be looking
into if I were you in terms of the income
from those grazing rights.
So I think that would be one of the areas that I would look at.
Thank you.
First, it's good to know
Cllr Martin Tett - 0:08:11
that Councillor Wilson will be demanding a prompt meeting
of the Thameside Preservation Trust.
Advisory committee.
It says Preservation Trust here.
But obviously, I'm out of knowledge on that.
On a serious point, there's two here
I was quite interested in, which is first of all, the Griffin's
Lincolnshire and Thomas Trust.
It's a complicated charity, combination
of three former trusts, number of trustees.
What is its purpose, and what did it do?
I'm just trying to understand the implication of changes.
I'm not questioning again, just for the sake of,
I'm not saying whether it was a good or a bad charity
or a good or bad purpose.
I'm just trying to understand what
it did and therefore the implications of moving monies
potentially.
And the second question is around the Green Park Aston
Clinton Trust.
Now, having been involved with Green Park over many decades
now, it's a complicated history up there,
site owned by the former county council,
leased to the old Adventures in Learning Foundation,
et cetera, et cetera.
So what is the role of that and how does it impact either financially or operationally on what the Council can do on that site?
Mark Preston - Assistant Chief Finance Officer P,P&P - 0:09:23
Thank you. The Griffith, Lincolnshire and Thomas Trust, as I alluded to earlier, really, it was two of the biggest aspects of it.
was the provision of a free library service and a museum
that have since relocated in Wickham.
Sorry, I didn't make that specific really as part of that.
The third element of it is Memorial Gardens,
which is near the theatre area.
So they're the three aspects really
of the charity that are meant to be operating really.
So just to be clear, sorry, Joan, if that's OK.
just on that particular one.
Cllr Martin Tett - 0:10:00
So what's proposed here would have no impact
on the provision of those services
wherever they have relocated to.
It was obviously consideration of that.
And do they still operate?
Mark Preston - Assistant Chief Finance Officer P,P&P - 0:10:12
The Memorial Gardens, obviously, still exists.
But the library service and so on, are these just
anachronisms now?
They exist elsewhere in Wickham.
They do.
Cllr Martin Tett - 0:10:22
So we aren't interfering in any way.
What I'm dreading is we do something,
then suddenly there's a headline in the local paper
that the council has stopped something happening
that's happened for centuries.
Yeah, so it won't happen.
OK, thank you for that.
Nothing happens on that.
Mark Preston - Assistant Chief Finance Officer P,P&P - 0:10:37
And Green Park, you mentioned earlier.
I don't think there's any impact, actually,
from a Green Park perspective.
It's purely about the fact that there
is an area of land which is contained,
owned by the trust, and that's not the county council.
Not by the former county council.
I thought all of Green Park was owned by the former county
Cllr Martin Tett - 0:10:55
council and therefore transferred to us.
That's not true.
It's just this one parcel of land,
Mark Preston - Assistant Chief Finance Officer P,P&P - 0:11:00
I think, that's contained in there.
I believe that we have removed that
from another piece of land that is on Green Park previously.
So that might be one of the things
that we investigate with the Charities Commission.
Thank you.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 0:11:14
Councillor Collingwood.
I think, from my perspective,
in terms of order and governance,
Cllr Alex Collingwood - 0:11:21
I think it would be good to understand
once they've had the investigations completed
and the meeting in March,
for at least this coming back as an information item
back to us as a committee to understand, okay,
to Councillor Wilson's and Councillor Tester's point,
what are the physical assets, what are the responsibilities,
what are the liabilities, and what are the ultimate actions,
and where would it sit going forward?
I wish to retro it all,
because there are three different categories,
and depending on what category you're in,
depends on what the outcome looks like.
Just to understand, corporate governance -wise
is a corporate body, because sometimes,
as Higgins and Park and Farnham would be the sole trustee,
surely we should try and get it to be a situation where
we have the same methodology and the same modus operandi
that if we have trust, we're in effect always the sole trustee.
We know what the purpose is.
We know what the assets are.
We know what the liability is.
So therefore, it's got clear audit trail
of what they all are.
At the moment, we've got three versions of everything that go,
it could be a matrix of anything, right?
So I think the work that Mark is doing is fantastic, but I think we as all the
governors would like to see back again just to understand, okay, now we've tidied
ourselves up, what does it all look like and what actions do you need to take to
then have a standardised model so that any of our successes have got, oh okay,
right, you've got 15 different trusts, they do A, B and C and the liabilities of this
and the assets of that and the operation is set. That makes sense.
Hopefully that makes sense, Chairman.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 0:12:51
Thank you. Yes, Councillor Lawson followed by Councillor Powell.
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 0:12:56
Yeah, I think a similar point really at the Buckinghamshire Council is the sole trustee of Thameside Preservation Trust.
So, you know, and I've mentioned it to the section 151 officer on a couple of occasions that no meeting has taken place.
So, you know, I think it is incumbent upon this Council to hold those meetings and then report back as Councillor Collingwood has said.
Cllr Chris Poll - 0:13:24
I'm sure much of the information will come out on, as Councillor Wilson says, on the Tameside Preservation Trust.
And it's useful to know that the Council is the only shareholder in that.
But I would just be interested to know if there are any costs to those charities by all this investigation work and any ongoing costs that reduces their fund holdings.
Mark Preston - Assistant Chief Finance Officer P,P&P - 0:13:54
That's been part of the exercise we've been undertaking and that's been the difficult
bit about it in terms of just making absolutely sure we identify all expenditure in relation
to those particular charities of which we haven't found any and I note Councillor Wilson's
comment just about grazing rights. We will go and just have another look at that specifically
to see if we can actually find if there's any income that's actually been generated
is part of that.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 0:14:21
Any other questions from members?
Okay, just a couple of points from me if that's okay.
So in terms of the shareholder and trust committee, and I'm looking at the deputy monitoring officer
here, will these discussions be in, do you anticipate in the public session of the committee
or in the private session when it comes in March?
Depending on the details coming forward, I would have said it would be in the public
Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer - 0:14:47
session as much as possible. Most things should be in the public session as much as possible
as you'd imagine. But that would be the case. It would only depend upon the level of detail
officers or yourselves thought you needed to see. Normally it would be in the public
session. Okay, thank you for that reassurance. And
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 0:15:02
then building on what members have said about post -meeting report back to audit and governance
after a shareholder and trust committee is met,
if that's possible, please.
Yeah, okay, yeah, thank you very much.
We now move on to agenda item six,

6 2025/26 Business Assurance Strategy Update (incl. Internal Audit Plan)

which is the 2526 business assurance strategy update.
I don't know if that's Joe or Selena
that's gonna kick that one off.
Thank you, Chair.
Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager - 0:15:27
So this paper is providing an overview
of the work that's been carried out
by the business assurance team.
Just like to remind members
that the business insurance function is responsible for risk management, internal order, and counter
fraud. So we have provided an update within those three areas of work.
So we continue to review our work plans and ensure that the work that we're undertaking
is responsive to any emerging risks and priorities. So you'll notice as we go further down in
the report where we have had conversations with directors where it is a decision to counsel
or anything's been added, that is demonstrating our ability to respond to any unplanned work
priorities within the directorate.
So this report is giving you an update as of the end of quarter three.
We will be in this quarter four starting to plan our work for the 26 -27 activity as well
as continuing to deliver the 25 -26 plan of activity that we already have agreed.
On page 28 of your PAC, I've provided a summary of the activities being undertaken by the
risk management team.
So we continue to undertake quarter risk workshops with services.
And again, this is to ensure that we align service priorities with our risk capturing activity.
Strategic risk registers were reviewed by CMT November.
This was presented to inform a cabinet in November and further on to cabinet the December 25 meeting.
I'd also like to highlight that risk management group met on the 23rd.
and this strategic risk register version was also reviewed
and discussed at that meeting.
Section three of the paper, which is page 29 of the PAC,
we've included some details
of the audit planning methodology that we followed
when we compiled that list of audit engagements,
which is your appendix two of the PAC.
So at the meeting in November,
there was a request for members for us to just set out
how we go about compiling that list of audits
that we're going to be focusing on, so we have just provided a summary of the methodology
that we've followed to do that.
With regard to our audit actions, so we continue to be in a good position.
You'll notice that we're actually the papers probably out of date now reporting five audit
actions being overdue.
As of today, we only have three that are overdue, so we're making really good progress on those.
Audit actions were presented to CMT this month as well, and again, it was with respect to corporate directors giving assurances as to what they'll do to ensure that audit actions do not continue to be going past their due date.
I'd like to draw your attention to page 32 of the PAC. In here is where I've highlighted some of the audits that we're recommending to be deferred or cancelled.
These were presented to the Governance and Assurance Board this month who have agreed in those four audit actions.
Apologies, I think I noted five, but it's actually four.
They've agreed for those to be deferred or cancelled.
But we're presenting to you for approval that we can go ahead with that based on the rationale that we've provided.
With regard to the internal audit plan itself, again this is Appendix 2 on page 35.
We continue to make good progress and we're still confident that we'll be delivering that plan.
We've included within the Appendix 2 within the status when we'll be doing those orders.
Again, this is a request from members that we set out exactly what month and give you further assurances that the work is scheduled in.
So we are confident that we'll be delivering that activity for this year.
We have completed five grant certifications, finalised 11 audits, which again present as part of your part two of the PAC.
And we have now 10 reviews that are draught reporting stage going through our QA process.
And then lastly, we've given you a highlight on our counter fraud work.
That's just our quarter three position.
And again, counter -fraud stats are presented to a statutory officer's group on a quarterly
basis.
So what you're seeing here is what they would have also been seeing for discussion.
One of our key areas that we highlight is what we call multiple employment polygamy.
It's an area that statutory officers and HR are working closely to monitor to make sure
we get to the bottom of that.
But we actively investigate in instances that are highlighted.
And at present, our National Fraud Initiative process is a good flag of highlighting those,
and they've been the key focus for our activity this quarter.
And I'll pause there for any questions.
Thank you very much.
Councillor Rouse.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 0:20:14
Thank you, Chairman.
So three questions for me, if I may.
So the first one is not an unusual observation, which is around audits being deferred.
Cllr Simon Rouse - 0:20:24
The one in particular I just want to understand a bit more
about is the project management office deferral, which
if you read it as it's written, you
can imply that this was an assurance activity that
was previously done, where there were outstanding assurance
activities that have not yet been completed.
And instead of then being reassured,
they have said, we're going to implement those changes.
We're going to do it late.
So please defer the audit, and we'll come back
and do it afterwards.
And so I suppose, can you just give us some assurance?
Firstly, what was the materiality
of the issues that were found in the previous assurance
activity?
And that deferral, who was engaged
in making that decision?
And how can we be confident that this isn't just a delay in order
to enable actions to have been completed that should
have been completed on time?
And it leads me to my second sort of bete noir, which is,
I think I've raised before around cabinet members
is automatically getting site of internal audit reports.
And I'd be interested to know if that's yet been implemented
or is being implemented.
And that same principle applies to me on deferral of audits.
So who has visibility in directorates
and in terms of the democratic oversight
around deferral of audits to express concern
if they feel that is an area they want to make sure
they can get assurance over?
And then the third question.
There's a really interesting sentence
in the counter fraud report, and the 4 .4, which refers to close collaboration with adult social care.
We've seen an increase in cases being referred to the team. What's not clear to me is what was it about that collaboration?
What is that collaboration? What is it? What was it about that collaboration that's led to an uplift in cases?
And why is it that processes were not delivering that? What is it about collaboration versus processes causing that?
You just talk to us a little bit more about what are the sorts of cases that that collaboration has identified and is driving forward?
Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager - 0:22:26
Thank you, Councillor. So I will start with the PMO deferment. So the audit, we undertook
an assurance review last year, and one of the key recommendations or agreed actions
was around implementing a new system. There's been a delay in the implementation of that
system, so they're still working, sort of following manual processes. So if we go in,
we're re -auditing essentially the same issues and the same methodology that they're working
against. So they do have a system that's been implemented, but it's not there yet.
So we can't test the new controls and the process that we've agreed is a way forward.
So it is more if we go in, we'll be raising exactly the same issues because the methodology
and the work which is spreadsheet based and document based is still the same. They are
some improvements that they've made in terms of the corporate reporting. So one of our
observations was around the organisation and understanding how they engage with the PMO
function, having standardised documentation.
So they have done some of that.
But again, it's the system element of it
in terms of how they are controlling their processes
that we were not assured on.
And I think until we've got the new system in,
that was our recommendation that we undertake
the order at that point.
Cllr Simon Rouse - 0:23:38
To strike me as a slight cause for concern
that the project management office is
delayed in the delivery of a project
to improve its processes.
And I suppose that again just sort of caused me to say,
why wouldn't that lead to an assurance about how can we be confident and how can the director
be confident that is going to be delivered as needed and as expected? Because otherwise
we just end up kicking these things down the road and it was sufficiently serious that
you decided to come back and do assurance. Now it's delayed and you're going to do a
later assurance. So that process just doesn't feel right to me. It kind of then does lead
to the second point around who made that decision, who had oversight of that.
Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager - 0:24:17
So in terms of everything that we've discussed at the respective directorates, SLT, so the
respective corporate director and the service director will be in there as part of those
discussions.
The system that's being implemented is about efficiency and a better way of working.
So I suppose in terms of giving you assurances, we're not saying there's any projects that
are not being undertaken or being delayed.
They're just not doing it as efficiently as they should do.
And in terms of the reporting mechanisms that sit behind that are not as effective as we'd like to see.
So that's where the basis of there's a better way of doing what you can do.
Further to that, there's also been some restructures that are happening in that space.
And I think that might have fed into the delay of the system implementation.
So we haven't seen a concern with the delivery of programme work corporately.
It is more limited to that function, how they have oversight and monitoring of the activity.
So I'm not sure if that gives you any assurances on that,
but I think there's just a better way
of delivering our PMO function is what we recommended
in our last review.
I don't know, Jo wants to add more.
Yes, thank you.
Jo Baschnonga - Service Director for Major Projects - 0:25:21
So I am the Service Director across both Improvement
and Business Assurance.
I've been in the role roughly four months now.
And when I look at the maturity
of the Project Management Office,
considering how long it has been operating,
I think systematically it is about where you would expect it to be.
So we are looking to systematise it in a more robust way
through the procurement of a project management system.
We have the budget for that and we have a business case on its way.
We're also talking to others across the council to ensure that we're looking at this proposition
in as corporate a way as possible and that does mean that it takes a little bit longer.
But as Selena has mentioned, there are already systems in place.
We know they can be improved.
We have made some improvements to the spreadsheet systems themselves since the original audit.
And we are in the midst of a service review.
So this project management system is part of a broader array of improvements that we'll
be making to that team's offer and the way that that team operates.
So I hope that provides some additional assurance.
I don't like this one.
I mean, I've just said before many times,
Cllr Simon Rouse - 0:26:39
service reviews are always being used as the reason for deferral.
And I just don't, I genuinely don't think that's best practise.
Service reviews should, if the service reviews are underway,
the insurance activity can help inform whether those service
reviews are going to lead to better outcomes.
I just, I make the point I always make on it.
Deferrals really should be exceptional.
This one doesn't feel like that to me.
I just want to build on the points of Councillor Rouse because obviously the membership of
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 0:27:05
the Governance and Assurance Board is all senior officers in the council and back to
Councillor Rouse's first point was about democratic oversight. So what involvement,
I know we talked about the director of SLTs but there's no democratic involvement in any
of those decisions apart from informing the committee of the decisions that have been
made?
Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager - 0:27:31
No, so the decision in terms of the member engagement is through this committee because
the business assurance strategy and the actual audit plan is agreed by this committee.
So we bring those whilst we have a governance insurance board which has got this section
one for one monitoring officer, it's for this committee to agree or approve that yes, we
can go ahead and do those.
So we've got agreement from an officer perspective but we're giving assurance to this committee.
we seek that approval from yourselves. Seek approval to go ahead with things
what if you are you seeking permission not to go ahead with to defer?
So they are seeking approval here to defer that.
Not entirely sure that was obvious to me. No that's why I was trying to flesh
Cllr Simon Rouse - 0:28:18
that out. So back to you Councillor Rous.
Do you want to come back on that point now?
One of my personal views is it should be deferred.
But I must say it's the first time on an audit and governance committee
it's become obvious to me that we have the power to say it shouldn't be deferred.
Genuinely, I never realised that.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 0:28:35
Cllr Alex Collingwood - 0:28:43
Your predecessor, Chairman, was very, very clear that ultimately it was the committee who made that decision
about whether you defer or don't defer.
I have the same concern you do about the PMO, because sorry, we've got issues about contract
management as well, issues about PMO.
I get the bit about the teacher's pension bit because structurally it's not required,
if that makes sense.
And I get the one uniform assurance and accounts payable bit because we did have a long discussion
with Sarah Brooklyn about the implementation of the SAP piece
in risk management the other day.
And that's going back to us again.
So I get the number one, three, and four,
but I still have not convinced my number two,
if that makes sense.
And we were very clear that if we didn't agree with it,
then they'd have to either come up
and confirm why they were doing the referral,
but give us more detail than what we got there.
I've got a couple of points as well, Chairman, separately.
Council's help was first, then back to you, Council Hollywood.
Oh, sorry.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 0:29:42
Cllr Martin Tett - 0:29:44
Yes, so me not Alex.
Mine were relatively high level questions,
being a relatively new member of this committee.
And it wasn't quite frankly obvious to me
that we were being asked to agree or not to agree.
So that's interesting and enlightening.
Thank you.
I mean, I've used internal audit in private business a lot.
I find them a very useful function when it's well done.
So I placed a lot of importance on this.
I was first of all just interested in 3 .2 in terms of,
because there's always a limited resource
within internal audit and a lot
of things they could potentially look at.
So how they prioritise what they look
at is always an interesting thing.
So if your criteria are those three factors, size, significance,
inherent risk, my question was is that financial?
Is it political?
Is it operational?
How do you balance those factors?
because as a member, I might place a lot of significance
and weight on a reputational risk to the council,
whereas actually financial may also be heavy,
but you know, in a different way.
So I'd like to understand how you weight the financial,
operational, and political stroke reputational risks
when you make decisions about what you look at.
And also, looking at the overdues,
I know you said there are a few of them now, but again, how are they monitored?
I mean, how do you get to the stage where things are significantly overdue?
Where is the overarching management that says, you know, we need to keep these on track?
How do they get to the stage where things are that overdue?
And surely, the SMT member, for a start, should be making sure that they don't go overdue.
And it comes back to, you know, glad the chairman asked what was going to be one of my questions,
which is where is the political oversight on any of these things.
Sorry, very naive questions from a new member.
Thank you, Councillor.
So I'll start with the risk weighting.
Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager - 0:31:41
So we have a spreadsheet model that does break down the risk criteria.
The only one that we do not have is the political weighting.
So we look at it, so the reputation of the financial is considered
if there's a health and safety element that is picked up.
Political implication is wound up in the reputation.
So we don't have one that clearly says there's a political impact on this.
However, I would further give assurances if there is a audit area that you think there's
a political implication you want assurances on, we present the internal audit plan as
a draught.
So it's part of a conversation if there's an area that there's a concern that members
feel want to be included, you have the ability to say, can we have this?
And we will have to consider it.
So that's sort of the methodology we go, but the weighting does not weight it and give
a view on the political view on the order actions.
Do you mind if I just, sorry, before you move on to my second question, I just want to make
Cllr Martin Tett - 0:32:35
sure I understand that.
So there is an issue, it may have a big reputational risk but a very low financial risk, and there
may be another one that has a big financial risk but a very low reputational risk.
Who makes the decision within that?
Because you say the three factors are weighted, or have equal weight, but within them there
are significant potential waiting issues in terms of say financial versus operational
versus reputational. Who makes that decision in each case?
Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager - 0:33:07
So that will be the audit team. So we have the discussion with the service directors
to say these are the orders that we want to look at, I suppose, call it a wish list initially.
Working within the resource limitations, it then goes through that risk assessment in
terms of those considerations. And it is a subject to view based and driven by the conversation
that we've had in our understanding
of the associated risk.
It could be that the weighting that you get from resources
on a particular issue is going to be different to the weighting
of an issue that's within adults and health.
So they're all looked at individually to consider them
within the remit and wish that they're working in.
What we then do is based on the weighting or the results,
the number it comes out in, somewhat regulated.
So you might have ones that are a bit lower in weighting,
so they might be medium on that list.
So we can start from the top
in delivering the ones that have been ranked
from a strategic perspective, from a risk perspective,
as our warrior list, and we make sure as an audit function,
we deliver those as a priority.
I think that's more our view and our approach that we take,
and it's all driven by the discussion
with the service directors.
A service director can have a different view
and think actually no, this is more
of an important value to me.
They don't see the waiting methodology.
We take that waiting, we do it at the back office, shall we say,
as we start compiling and putting that list together.
Okay, I'm just trying to ensure, and again, this goes back
Cllr Martin Tett - 0:34:29
to my own background in private business,
that we don't have a situation
where key things are being, key areas are being missed.
Either missed because they just don't get the waiting they need
internally, or are shuffled sideways by, say,
an SMT member who actually is a bit uncomfortable
with that area being looked at.
So, you're telling me, if I hear you correctly,
that you have operational independence outside of the SMT member,
you can override their view to say, no, no, we insist this area is looked at.
Is that correct?
Absolutely.
Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager - 0:35:05
So that's sort of part of our remit in terms of it being independent.
So it's good to have the discussion so we get the view of what's worrying
of service directors and our corporate directors.
But when we go into this discussion, we also have sort of the sector horizon scanning
and key factors that are happening for consideration.
and we bring those to the table.
The waiting is not done with the corporate director.
It's done after that where we have all the information
that helps us inform and give a view on the waiting.
It's a concern to hear it's done afterwards.
I thought you should do it before.
No, because the discussion is to understand
from the corporate director or the service director
what's on their list.
So we compile them a consolidated list
from all the directorates,
and then we start doing that exercise post those discussions.
Further to that, once we've done the list,
It goes to Order and Governance Board again
for reviewing the whole schedule based on results,
and further to that goes to CMT.
So the discussions and rationalisation priorities
are then looked at in sort of a consolidated position,
but the weighting is very much independent
and is done by the order team.
And the question about overdue and risk,
Cllr Martin Tett - 0:36:07
because there'll be risk associated with things slipping
into overdue, how do you actually look at,
A, how are they managed, and also,
how do you evaluate the risk of that slippage?
Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager - 0:36:20
So we don't reevaluate the risk because all the findings are already
regulated, so we've got the high, medium, and low.
When we report all the overdue actions to each respective director at SLT, so they have
cited them quarterly, and further to that it goes to CMT, what we do is then use this
forum as another shakeup in terms of members if you're not satisfied or we're seeing overdue
actions that you then say okay we do want to focus on this why is it not
moving so this is another further step we don't send these to the cabinet
member I think it forms part of the perspective corporate director liaison
with their cabinet member we do this with the corporate director and their
service directors and by CMT
Cllr Martin Tett - 0:37:08
say I never had any sight of this in my previous role so that's interesting
Councillor Collingwood.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 0:37:13
Thank you, Chairman.
Cllr Alex Collingwood - 0:37:16
One of the things we did talk about previously was that it's fine just showing a snapshot within the year,
but again when we look at page 33, 34, 35, you're only doing literally in the nine months this year,
in terms of your outstandings, your trends and the rest of it.
What we've asked for before, and I thought we were going to start to get going forward,
bit like we now have with the risk management register,
where we have all the detail behind it, if that makes sense,
is the previous three years.
Because what I'm trying to understand is trends.
So within the categories on page 33, you had 248,
I think it was, in terms of council tax fraud.
What I'm trying to understand the dynamic of is,
how is that in relation?
Because you talk about, on 4 .3, within the quarter
to quarter, but you don't talk about year to year.
So because what we're trying to work out
is it a systemic issue or is it a sort of event issue, if that makes sense.
So within a year there may be events like COVID or whatever that will cause issues to turn up, but
Ben, what we're trying to get to is, is there fundamentally a bit like,
Councillor Taylor was talking about where there are certain service directors won't want you to do
look at certain points because they go, actually that's my problem child, if that makes sense,
therefore I don't really want you to have a look at that area at all because actually we know that
But fundamentally, I've had that issue for the last five years
or whatever.
And actually, it's always been that way,
and it hasn't actually improved.
So it's that sort of bit there.
And in terms of the three overdue,
I assume we need to go into confidential,
because I want to discuss those in more detail later on,
if that makes sense, just to understand
the dynamic of that a bit more closely,
rather than talking about them generically.
But the fundamental bit was, I want three years' profile
to understand directional travel rather than just
being Snapshot, which is what it appears on this report,
has got Snapshot on it.
So I've got.
Can I take that as part of the year -end opinion?
Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager - 0:39:11
So we only implemented a system this financial year.
So we don't have the full picture
to be able to give you a three -year trend.
But I'm hoping for year -end, we're
able to at least give you two years where we can pick that
up.
So I think a lot of it, how we captured the data,
was slightly different to how we're capturing it.
So it won't give a very consistent picture, but I'll pick that up as part of the year
end to give you a bit more of the thematic outcomes from our fraud activity.
Cllr Alex Collingwood - 0:39:43
You understood it wasn't going to be exactly apples and apples, but it was more about the,
you know, what's flagging as red flags, if that makes sense, because of fundamental three -year
trend, if that makes sense.
And even if it meant that you, you as the audit team, had to give us your audit opinion,
if that makes sense, it was independent of the rest of the organisation, you go actually,
these are the three areas we're not happy with and we want to have more further detail
so we can then do further work on. Thank you.
Councillor Pold, then Councillor House.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 0:40:10
Cllr Chris Poll - 0:40:13
Thank you, Chairman. Again, like Councillor Tett, as a new member to this committee,
I think Councillor Collingwood has explained it better than I was going to in that having nine
months of data, not a year, isn't helpful, especially when you say this is a rolling
process. We could have three months from last year and nine months from this year
and then maybe understand things a bit better. I appreciate the explanation from
Ms Harlock about the independence of your operation, but I'm just interested that
but with a new service director,
you know, forgive me if I'm wrong,
but the first task is to delay reporting
to better understand where we are or were,
yet I don't know where we were,
so I can't understand where we are,
so it doesn't help me.
So forgive me if I'm misunderstanding,
but that's where I'm at.
Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager - 0:41:24
So, Councillor, on your last point, which part of the report you're referring to, I
might have missed that.
Cllr Chris Poll - 0:41:32
Sorry, we've been asked to approve a delay on reporting.
And it's that understanding, you know, is there a point in time that we could have that
we know where we are?
I suppose it's exactly the same as Councillor Collingwood
has just explained.
If we had the three years,
then I could understand as a new member
and understand why we're delaying some actions,
but I've got no benchmark to get my information
or my understanding from.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, so on the fraud side,
Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager - 0:42:14
I think we reported the data completely different
to how we're reporting it now in the prior years.
So things to note, for example, is even in the way
that we categorise the fraud cases themselves,
we have split them a bit more in more granular format
than we did before.
So I appreciate it.
I think I'll take it away as a point
to note in terms of the reporting going forward
so you have a fuller picture.
I think at the year -end position,
we'll be able to give you that trend and that history, I think,
which would be helpful to inform trends and perhaps what we do
with the forward side is what we report as well informs our focus
in terms of key themes as well and our proactive work.
So we should be able to see that link
between why we're prioritising a specific area driven
by the data that you see.
So I'll note that going forward to provide the history
and the context for any positions.
Thank you.
And I don't doubt your work and your processes,
Cllr Chris Poll - 0:43:16
but if they don't relate to, as you've said, the reporting is different to previous,
then it's almost impossible for the man on the platform, Omnibus, to understand.
Councillor Rous.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 0:43:30
Cllr Simon Rouse - 0:43:32
Thank you, Chairman. Sorry, in the excitement created, I'm actually getting on to my counter -fraud question on adult social care,
so I wonder if I could get that. But just coming back to the issue about the deferral,
so three things. The report actually says that members are recommended to note the report.
So if we do actually are being asked to approve things like the pharaohs
I do think that should be rephrased to approval and on that basis. Can I
propose that firstly
We ask officers to go away and reconsider the deferral on the project management office and given that the time to now the next committee
May not enable us to see that that they discussed that decision with you as chairman that you can
be engaged in. The second thing is I would find it incredibly helpful if for the next committee
officers could bring for us the principles on which they consider deferrals to be appropriate so that we can understand those
and in particular outline the basis on which service reviews are considered an appropriate basis
for deferral. Thank you.
Sorry, I just wanted to come back in on that. So
Jo Baschnonga - Service Director for Major Projects - 0:44:34
So when I was presenting the fact that we are in the midst of a service review, that
was meant to be as additional context.
The reason that we're suggesting in here and recommending that we defer that audit is because
at the moment it isn't the best use of the audit team's time because they would effectively
be repeating an audit that they have already done because they are in this audit.
The terms of reference are around going in to inspect the new system to see how that
has been implemented and whether that has improved the systems and processes.
We could remove that deferral and go in and have a look again at the PMO and the systems
and the processes and that would give an update to the previous position if the committee
would find that helpful.
But I just wanted to be clear about the reason for proposing the deferral, which is at the
moment, as has already been mentioned, we have limited resource within the audit team
and we need to prioritise that capacity where we think it's most required and it's going
to provide the best assurance.
Cllr Simon Rouse - 0:45:53
So, I really don't want to elongate the debate, but I'm expressing concern that the programme,
project programme management office, which is obviously critical to the delivery of what is a
significant amount of change across the organisation, has failed to progress on time the actions
that it was previously asked to deliver through its assurance, and it has used that as the basis to defer a future, or to
base the grounds for discussion with the audit team for deferring that audit. That gives rise to concern for me.
Whether the internal audit team decides to scope a different sort of audit,
looking at what are the reasons on which the programme management office has failed to deliver these assurance activities on time,
what has failed in that project delivery. That's a matter of professional judgement for the internal audit team.
But we're being presented with a deferral that I'm expressing concern over why that deferral has happened.
And my recommendation was just that officers go back and reconsider that deferral, potentially also then read it.
If your view is that the scope needs to be reconsidered, that's a matter for officers.
But I don't want to leave the committee under any doubt. I'm concerned about that deferral.
Thank you.
Councillor Wilson.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 0:46:58
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 0:47:01
I very much endorse Councillor Rous comments on that and was going to make the same point
about the paper has been presented to note and underneath it says recommendations not
applicable, which I think that's different from what we've now heard.
So I do endorse the explanation given on that particular item explains it in the context
of a service review.
So I share his concerns and comments on that.
The topic that I wanted to pick up,
which was referenced in the introduction,
was employment polygamy offences,
which says it's a emerging fraud risk area.
We've probably all read storeys from other authorities
about certain functions,
where this may be particularly occurring,
so it'd be useful to understand.
I know there's only three cases been taken forward
for investigation.
But are there particular areas of concern?
We may all have different views in terms
of which service areas this has become more common.
In particular, and it's a shame we didn't have,
well, I suppose we did have the papers published.
But when we had the resources, CMT, corporate director
with us on Friday, because it is described here as emerging,
what steps are being taken proactively to ensure
that this is nipped in the bud, particularly
if we could focus it down to certain service functions.
Thank you, Councillor.
I'm just going to pick up Councillor Rousey's questions
Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager - 0:48:44
from before that we had an answer to.
So that was around paragraph 4 .4 on the adults and health collaboration with the fraud team.
So what we've done, we've done some targeted fraud training, and I think that prompted
some thought and reflection of their processes.
So most of our cases have actually come through on direct payment side.
So we're expecting the service user clients to be sending through returns.
Some of the returns have not been quite good.
So I think they've just been more vigilant in terms of reviewing the returns, where there's
also gaps or things not making sense.
They've just flagged them thinking,
this doesn't feel quite right.
We've done this.
We've tried to make contacts.
So there is just more of a interaction
with the fraud team where we can be independent,
take a review of it, and make a quick determination as to
whether or not there is a fraud.
We have taken some cases forward where
we have seen clear evidence that something's not quite right,
where there's enough periodic sort of activity that does not
align with the care plan or what's
agreed with regard to how the direct payments been used and that's where we've progressed.
So I think if anything the success of our audit training,
fraud training is what's led to them engaging with us further.
With regard to your other questions, employment polygamy.
So it's a really difficult one to spot it because remote working is one of the key
factors as to why we're exposed to this.
And it's something that's recognised
across all local authorities.
I think we've got a classic case within the legal space,
actually, that there was a publication of someone
who worked for multiple legal firms and was disbarred for it.
So it's something that we have very little control over
and requires honesty.
What we have done is we've done managers briefings to, again,
alert managers to the need to declare.
So our code of conduct does put a requirement for office to make sure that they do declare any other
Employers that they have and we utilise that and do reminders around that in terms of our ability to spot them
Most of our alerts have come from either a whistleblower
An anonymous referral or our national fraud initiative. So we were able to see someone employed by another local authority
Those are the ones that are quite easy to pick up
and then we're able to pursue and follow those through.
But through our manager's brief, it's a reminder for managers to communicate to their team
for the need to declare that.
And I think there's an element of honesty that we expect from the officers and take
that judgement.
But because of the remote working, that is an inherent risk that we now have as many
organisations.
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 0:51:31
I think the term employment polygamy almost seems to be a legitimization of it.
It's a fundamental breach of contract.
And I think we should tell it how it is.
Employment polygamy just sounds like a gig economy, all those other kind of expressions.
and you know I think really it should be described how it is which is you know a
serious breach of somebody's employment contract. I think we're providing a form
of language and then my other question is remote working if that's a source of
opportunity then what steps further steps can we take around remote working
that make that very difficult in terms of monitoring,
for example, I mean you hear storeys of people
having several different laptops or phones on the go,
and equally from the private sector, I'm aware that,
you know, the level of monitoring that some companies
are now putting on remote working is extraordinarily high.
And are we up to that level of monitoring?
If people are abusing the privilege of remote working,
then they have to also live with the consequences of that.
So I think that would be where I would be pushing quite hard.
Thank you.
I'll take a note with regard to the employment
Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager - 0:53:09
polygamy.
It's a term that's been used within the fraud industry.
But if it's something that we don't want to use internally,
I'm happy to not use that internally.
So when we have all the comms in the network,
it's generally the term that's been used.
With regard to what wider controls
and how strict we are with remote working,
I'll take that away as an action.
And I guess as part of, again, our year -end position,
we can give an update as to the approach that's been taken.
At the moment, it's through, like I said,
through the managers.
So there's an expectation the managers
have an oversight of their teams.
So if it's not performance, you pick this up.
So we are communicating observations with regard to these multiple employment issues
via the managers forum equally.
There's a reminder around the code of conduct.
It's got strict guidance with regard to second employment and what you can do, the approval
that's required around that.
So it's again reminding people around the code of conduct, what they can and cannot
do.
where we do observe instances where there is multiple employment.
Again, with these cases, we do follow the Code of Conduct.
That is our driver to take the required sanctions
where we do find the person to be in breach.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 0:54:30
I just wanted to follow this up.
I mean, it concerns me a lot, frankly.
Cllr Martin Tett - 0:54:34
I mean, I have my own views about remote working,
but I was always assured by the Chief Executive
that she monitored the achievement of KPIs
and everything was fantastic.
But, I mean, it all depends what your KPIs are
and whether actually the individual members
of staff are fully stretched throughout the working day
by those KPIs.
I've certainly been whistle -blown by members
of the public about members of staff of this council
who were operating second businesses,
and I've passed that on in the past.
And I do worry that actually having some members of staff
who rarely, if ever, come into the office leads
to that opportunity and how on earth a manager would really
know whether they were actually operating a second job or not.
You know? And it's how you put
in place best practise controls that concerns me.
I mean, if there are, you know, I bow to the knowledge
of people like Stuart who, you know,
or have more recent experience in the private sector
than I have now.
If there are good best of code controls
in the private sector, I do think
we should be looking at what we need to put in place.
I'm not trying to, I mean, there's
the risk that we come over as incredibly heavy handed
with our staff.
I get that.
But we also have to be proportionate,
because this is taxpayers' money at the end of the day,
paid to employ people to perform tasks on behalf of taxpayers.
and if if we have a
Number of employees who are abusing the right to work from home in particular
In a way that they could never got away with if they were in the office
Then I think we do need to have you know legitimate
Safeguards in place on that it does worry me
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 0:56:24
We've taken that as a note to bring back excellent okay do members of any other points on this paper
councillor Collingwood
Cllr Alex Collingwood - 0:56:31
Depending on what the outcome of Councillor Rousey's proposal and what Councillor Wilson's
one of the things we have done previously is when we're not happy with certain items
we've specifically got the relevant department to come to the committee to then explain themselves.
Now the next meetings we've got are either the 26th of March or the 13th of May.
Interestingly on the 13th of May we've got implementation procurement act and contract management.
Well project management and office and contract management are not many miles
away from each other so if depending on how it all plays out chairman that might be a
fallback position that you know based on how it all plays out within the audit
space that we actually have them as an item on that agenda on the 13th of May.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 0:57:20
Thank you council Collingwood. So with no members wishing to speak any further on
this I think the general view of the committee that the deferral of the
project management office assurance review and that is not providing us a level of assurance.
So I would request on behalf of the committee that you go back to the governance and oversight board
chaired by the assistant chief executive and ask them to re -look at this and to provide a
post -meeting note to the committee to ensure whether we can have some assurance going forward.
And I do have to completely read Councillor Rousey's point, you know this is local authorities
are under huge financial pressures. Service reviews are part of the nature of the beast
and that cannot be a justifiable reason each time for deferring of these things. Now taking
the revised terminology that we are using for this agenda item, are members happy to
agree to the deferrals apart from the project management office one on the points that I
have already just outlined? Agreed. Okay. Thank you very much for that. We then move
on to agenda.
Can I just pick up the issue about the polygamy, to use that term, how is that going to be
taken forward?
I mean is that just simply an interesting point that will disappear at the end of this
Cllr Martin Tett - 0:58:33
meeting or is there an action?
We will add it to the action, Mark.
Yes, so we can add it to the action log, but I will also pick it up as part of the year
Selina Harlock - Audit and Assurance Manager - 0:58:44
end annual report for all the fraud activities, so that's when you see the full position.
I just think it's important that members raise concerns. They're either dealt with in the meeting and we're satisfied or
Cllr Martin Tett - 0:58:53
There's an action that then follows on from it. Thank you. Thank you

7 Risk Management Group Terms of Reference

Cllr Matthew Walsh - 0:58:59
Okay, moving on to agenda item seven, which is the risk management groups terms of reference in the agenda supplement that has been now shared
With members following the meeting of the risk management group last week
members of the risk management group that were present and agreed that there should be a small
change in the wording to remove the word informal.
That was the recommendation from the things.
But if any other members of the committee
have any questions on the terms of reference?
Councillor Sherwell?
Cllr Alan Sherwell - 0:59:33
Sorry, firstly, apologies for being late.
I had a medical appointment.
And that, in a sense, is why I'm raising the point that I am.
I absolutely understand that it is
very desirable for a meeting to be core -rate,
that the chairman is there.
But I can envisage circumstances,
like just recently having spent eight days in hospital
for a hip replacement, where the chairman might physically not
be able to be there.
The way things are worded at the moment,
that means you can't have a meeting.
And I have a suspicion that that's not wholly wise.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:00:16
Thank you, Councillor Chilwell. I actually did raise that with the Deputy Monitoring Officer previously.
Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer - 1:00:25
Yeah, that's absolutely right. So I'm not sure why that is not reflected there. But it is the case and it's quite well made that we did discuss there's a flexing of that.
It could be the chairman or anyone appointed by the chairman to chair that meeting. So it gets around exactly that blockage.
So if you were minded to give your assent,
as this report is asking,
we can reattach that point,
which we should have done in the first place.
Thank you.
Thank you for raising that, Councillor Sherwell.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:00:46
Yes, so that amendment and the removal of the word informal
is the recommendation.
Are there any member questions on the paper apart from that?
Well, normally most committees, chairman or vice chairman,
because one of the questions we just discussed,
what happens if chairman is incapacitated?
Cllr Alex Collingwood - 1:01:01
Heaven forbid.
Or does it then mean that they in effect,
within the body of the risk management group,
they would then appoint the chairman within themselves,
if that makes sense.
I assume that's the workaround,
I assume is why we're describing it,
rather than, yeah, I don't mind either way,
but as long as it can still function,
because what we don't want to have a scenario
is where we had a deferral from December,
we did it again last week,
because of say, capacity or whatever,
you still, because of the way the risk management operates,
you do need to have meet regularly, and often,
and again we're meeting again tomorrow for another set of risk management pieces of tomorrow,
to make a good functioning of the council you need it to operate on a regular and off -the -basis if that makes sense.
And through all of our other commitments there will be occasions where
one or all of us won't necessarily make particular dates if that makes sense.
So I don't know if the wording we just described gives us that flexibility. Maybe the officer can give us guidance.
Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer - 1:02:02
The point is well made that the flexibility point is the
important one.
That the risk management group can't be snookered, so to speak,
by the terms of reference that it's being given,
such that the discussion we had that as originally conceived,
and has been pointed out that it would be potentially workable
in circumstances, the chairman would represent the group.
That was to reflect the linkage back with this committee
and have that formality.
However, the discussion that was had was that idea
that the chairman could nominate who the chair would be,
so that if it could be the vice chairman,
it could be anybody else,
just to enable that meeting to take place.
So there was that flexibility that everyone could be aware of
because as a risk management group,
it does not need to be chaired by any specific brand,
so to speak.
So that flexibility point is crucial,
and that needs to reflect that so that the meetings
can take place in a core manner to report back in any case.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:02:58
A members agreed? That's approved. Thank you very much. We now move on to agenda item 8

8 Action Log

which is the action log on pages 49 to 50 of your pack. Do members have
questions on the action log?
Cllr Alex Collingwood - 1:03:26
Chairman, it seems relatively light compared to our previous incarnation because again
to Councillor Taylor's point, we had a full on action log and it made sure it was dealt
with and completed and it would then come back to the committee and come back to it.
You know what I mean?
Hence why the final part piece came was because that's part of the action log originally and
in the end we got so irritated, it's like no, no, you will cheque the cabinet and have
present themselves three times in the end.
Do you know what I mean?
So therefore, I don't have any problems
with what's on the action,
we'll just have an amazing staff chat.
Okay, noted and we will keep an eye on that.
Councillor Collingwood.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:03:59
I have one point on this and I did raise this the other day,
which was the chief auditor annual opinion
to bring a request to a future meeting
to outline what resources would be required
to reach a substantial overall opinion.
This was raised at a previous meeting
by Councillor Tate in particular.
I'm a little disappointed that something that was raised in September is going to be brought back in March
I don't think six months is
Justifiable and I will ask the deputy one five one officer to pass those comments on to the section 151 officer
This is expediated going forward and we don't have a regular repeat of six months for update
Okay. Thank you for members content to note the action. Okay. Thank you very much

9 Work Programme

We now move swiftly on to the treasury management strategy 2026 to 2029 which is page 55 of your
package.
9.
We are on 9.
Oh, 9.
I do apologise.
Councillor Carrington's appearance gave me the impression that we were now on agenda
item 10.
So we'll go back to the work programme which is on 51 to 54.
Do members have any questions on the proposed work programme?
Councillor Collywood.
Cllr Alex Collingwood - 1:05:17
I think back to our previous point, I wasn't sure, the reason I was being a bit cagey there
was based on how the debate went, whether or not the project manager office came back
to us in March or whether it came back to us in May.
I'm content it would come back in May.
I know normally six months you might say we're quite long.
I'd rather we took a time and got it right, that the relevant discussions were all had,
the relevant audits are done or not done,
but that the project management team come to us
and actually present to us,
like we're doing with the contract management team,
at our physically as a proper item,
so we can get the base benchmark of where they come from,
where are they today and where are they going to
going forward.
Because I think fundamentally,
the contract management piece and the project management team
are gonna be really fundamental
on how this council operates going forward.
It's my suggestion.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:06:07
Thank you I think we'll see the outcome of what we sent back to the audits and
governance board before we but again we can make adjustments to the work programme
as needed. I'm tempted it may be good enough it doesn't happen if it happens to be marked
Cllr Alex Collingwood - 1:06:19
great but I'm not not demanding it to be marked I think it may is a more
realistic time frame if I make sense to get it done properly. Okay thank you Councillor Collingwood.
Any other members any questions? Okay members content to note the work
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:06:33
programme.
Thank you.

10 Treasury Management Strategy 2026-27 to 2028-29

Okay, for the second time again, we will now discuss the Treasury Management Strategy 2629.
I'd like to welcome our Fiona Johnson Councillor, Robert Carrington.
Thank you very much, Chair, and apologies for only just turning on now.
It's been an interesting morning so far.
So now going quickly into Treasury Management Strategy 2627.
Cllr Robert Carington - 1:06:59
So you're all be aware, so the strategy,
this is an annual review and the Audit and Governance Committee
are asked to recommend the strategy to full council
for approval in February.
There are a number, there are six recommendations here,
particularly most of them are sort of the usual generic
updates to the document, but there is one in particular, which I will later on sort
of highlight with a bit more attention.
So just a quick summary.
Strategy, as mentioned, is a statutory document that we're required to publish on an annual
basis.
Document sets out the Council's approach to managing cash flows, investments, and borrowing
for future years.
The strategy is prepared in line with sector best practise and with the support of the
MUFG, included within the strategy is a suite of indicators known as the potential indicators.
The purpose of these indicators is to demonstrate that the Council's capital investment borrowing
plans are affordable, sustainable, and prudent.
So the one recommendation I particularly want to highlight is recommendation four, which
is the removal of additional approval requirements when trading with other local authorities.
So the key proposed change here from the current strategy is the alignment of the approval
process for investments placed with other local authorities, with that in place with
other types of investment.
The reasoning for this is this could yield an additional half a million pounds per annum
investment income for the council via the removal of timing constraints as currently
because of the timing and the current, one would argue,
over cautious measures in place do mean that we,
that section 151 office and the deputy section 151 office are
in situations where they will have to turn down ones which,
because there just isn't the time,
because of the time sensitivity,
which it is a calculated lose up, loses us
up to half a million pounds per annum.
So the proposal is to remove the need to obtain approvals
from the Section 151 officer, the CEO,
and the leader whenever an investment is made
with a local authority.
These requirements currently impose, as I've said,
timing constraints, which means officers can't negotiate
and acquire the most favourable terms available
within the market.
In order to safeguard the council's reputation
and provide continued member oversight in the area,
a number of additional processes and controls
are proposed within the strategy
to enhance existing processes.
So these include monthly reporting to myself
as cabinet member for resources
and the lead on all investments placed
with local authorities,
due diligence around the local authorities,
financial circumstances,
the setting of investment limits
by local authority counterparties,
and there's obviously an ongoing review
into how everything would work if it is approved, of course.
The strategy will for the first time also include a list
of counterparties that the council has placed fixed term
deposits with during 25 -26.
This is in response to a recent FOI inquiry
which can be found in Appendix 4.
So I'm just, the one thing I really do want to stress is
that this is not getting rid of member oversight at all.
As I said, there are strict measures which are being
proposed, and the oversight will be there.
It is just trying to streamline, smooth a process which slightly
holds our hands at the moment and is resulting in this lost
income of up to half a million pounds.
And I think that will be, that's just my quick overview.
Thank you.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:11:10
Fiona, is there anything you wish to add?
Thank you, Robert.
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:11:14
Robert's given a good oversight of the strategy. I mean really in terms of the local authority investment piece
one of the key considerations for us and putting this proposal forward is around the reputational risk to the organisation
potentially aligning our controls in place with our other investments that we play.
So it's been a really significant part of the
consideration around this and then that's come through then through to the proposals that you see before you.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:11:39
Just wanted to re -emphasise that point chair. Thank you very much. Questions for members of Council.
Mr. Tett.
Yes, thank you.
Cllr Martin Tett - 1:11:43
I have three areas I just wanted to question on.
The first one is on affordability and the spike in 2627.
Now, I mean, in fairness, they do explain that,
but obviously the balance between effectively
the financing cost and next income
affects the overall revenue budget.
And I'm just flagging, I'm a bit concerned
that we're going from 2 .61 in 2425 up to effectively six.
That's a big jump.
It's a big, big jump.
And I'm just trying to understand
the balance between the extra borrowing for capital projects
such as, for example, children's homes versus the decrease
in the interest that we're actually getting.
Is it more to do with the amount we're borrowing,
or is it more to do with the decrease in the income?
So if I could just have that just to separate the three points
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:12:45
So the question you're asking is around what's causing the change in the affordability indicators
Cllr Martin Tett - 1:12:51
It's not just what's causing it because you explain that I'm asking about the balance between the two. I'm trying to get some
Comfort that actually it's being caused predominantly by the fact with borrowing to save
Yeah, we're spending to save through things like investment in children's homes as opposed
to it's the market, the interest rates just going down, you know, where it's...
This is an area that residents, not every resident, but critics of the council zero
in on the indebtedness of the council.
And I'm just trying to understand the counter argument and the rationale.
Thank you for the clarification.
Yes, it's absolutely that.
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:13:27
So as you'll be aware, we've undertaken various investor -safe projects of which the children's
homes are one, that involves capital outlay, so a decrease to the capital's
cash balances, but also then potentially borrowing, so that then drives the impact
Cllr Martin Tett - 1:13:41
that you're describing. So it's predominantly increased borrowing that's
driving that increase from 2 .6 to effectively 6%. That's correct.
Yep, and then it drops though down to 3 .4, then back up to 5. Again, can you just
explain that variation.
Yeah, so in terms of the increases that we then see,
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:14:00
I think we then are seeing sort of a stabilisation in terms
of expected interest rates coming through,
and then less cash outlay as far as the capital programme
is concerned.
So that has that overall impact.
Sorry, I'm still a bit confused.
Cllr Martin Tett - 1:14:14
I can understand why it goes up if you borrow more.
That borrowing is still there.
Yeah.
So why does it then drop from 6 to 3 .4,
but then increase to 5 again?
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:14:24
I'm looking at table four on page 67.
I'm sure there's a very simple explanation,
I just don't know what it is.
I'll have to come back with a response on that.
Okay, I would like a written answer on that if possible,
unless Leslie can provide it.
Cllr Martin Tett - 1:14:46
I hoped she might be able to give the answer.
Okay, my second point was about borrowing strategy.
And in 4 .2, it points out that most of the debt is through the Public Works Loan Board,
which is effectively a public bank, just for anybody watching.
There are fixed interest rates.
That historically has been quite useful when interest rates are going up.
Given that interest rates are coming down, is that still the best strategy, or are we
tying ourselves into a higher level of interest in an era of falling interest rates?
Can you just advise me on how that is considered?
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:15:25
So we undertake regular review of the potential for debt rescheduling.
So that's looking at the debt portfolio that we have, the interest rates associated with
that, which as you say are fixed, and whether or not it makes sense to actually go out to
the market to actually get a different type of debt in order to achieve sort of revenue
savings for the reasons that you're saying that actually interest rates have come down.
So we review that on a regular basis.
Internally it's considered monthly as to whether or not we should take that action.
The current market conditions suggest that's not something we should be doing, but it's
kept under constant review.
And as and when that produces a financial benefit to the organisation, we would move
to reschedule if needed.
Right.
Cllr Martin Tett - 1:16:01
I mean, I will just say this again, obviously, because it says here all debt is held with
Public Works loan board outside of Lobos.
Yep.
There are fixed interest rates.
Fixed interest rates 12 months ago were very high.
Yep.
So we're tied into a lot of long -term debt at high interest rates in an era when interest
rates have come down. I just want some reassurance that that's been fully considered.
Yes, it has been fully considered. One of the key things we'll look at is any premium
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:16:27
that we need to pay if we have to repay early. That needs to be a consideration because that
then becomes a charge through to our revenue budgets. We need to balance that against any
reduction in interest payments that we would see to make sure overall in revenue we're
not worse off by undertaking a rescheduling.
Cllr Martin Tett - 1:16:44
My third is actually on this principle of effectively removing some of the controls
we had in place around lending to other councils.
And again, in the interest of transparency, I was involved in those decisions to implement
those controls.
I am, quite frankly, concerned about their removal.
There are good reasons they were put in place.
It was a recommendation of the 151 officer at the time, and it related to loans we'd
made to other councils that were in significant financial
trouble.
I won't name what they are, but they
weren't that far from here.
And there are now a mounting number of local authorities
that are applying to the government for what's called
exceptional financial support.
These are councils that are effectively bankrupt,
but the government doesn't want to say they're bankrupt
because it looks bad.
So they're actually bailing them out behind the scenes.
I am just really concerned, frankly,
that we would end up, because they offer a higher interest
rate, lending to them and then finding ourselves
in a debtors' queue somewhere, either with this government
or maybe with another government that's
less generous on exceptional financial support.
Because again, I come back to this is all taxpayers' money.
And I am really concerned that these controls that
were put in place are being waived aside.
Why can't we speed up the process for approval
rather than removing the controls.
If it requires the CEO and the leader,
which it does, I understand that,
why can we just not put in place a very fast,
speedy process for obtaining those approvals,
rather than removing that control
and potentially exposing this council
to significant financial risk in an era
when local authorities are very financially stretched
and an increasing number applying
for exceptional financial support?
Cllr Robert Carington - 1:18:38
Thank you very much for the question, and I highlight you to page 70 and page 71 of
the report, which highlights a number of the measures which are being put in place.
As I said in my opening, at no point, very much the oversight is still there.
It is a matter of speed in regards to allowing us to access this money and not to be losing
out on this up to half a million pounds.
I mean, you made a very valid point regarding the financial status of certain councils,
which we have all read about and we know in the current climate there will be more.
This is inevitable.
But as it very much says in here, what we are putting in is there is a list.
There is going to be due diligence on every single one.
There is going to be a list.
It is going to be on a case -by -case basis on the stronger and the weaker ones.
And it's important to note all of these ones which have been mentioned, no one has had
Section one one four so far there has not been one. I know you've raised your points on that, but it is important to note that point
And there was the oversight of myself and the leader on all on every single one of these on the monthly basis and
We will have a review and a list of these councils
So we will not be throwing them into the ones which are deemed
inadequate or weak anything for taking the second point.
So just a little bit further on the first point. I think just just to remind
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:20:27
members that no councillor today has been in default in terms of any loans that
are due including those in financial difficulty. Our considerations that they
are government backed and actually that position that could change in the
future but at the moment they're considered to be government backed and
not in default. We are unusual as a local authority in terms of us not
dealing with other local authorities as in investing with them. That's not a
to do something, we don't just do things because others do it, but we are an
outlier as far as that's concerned and that's the sort of view
that we've had back from our Treasury Management Advisors. So those are just a
few additional points to make over and above what Robert has stated. On the
process point which Councillor Tett has raised, just to explain to you how the
process works, so on any given morning the Treasury officers will get us from
our brokers a list of deals that are available for the day. We have to move in
of hours in order to be able to secure that.
So yes, in theory I could support a speedy process,
but that's relying on the availability of the Section 151
Officer, the Chief Executive, and the Leader
to be able to be fully briefed, to understand the deal,
to understand the implications, and then move to act.
And at the moment, that's just not practical.
And even with the most condensed process
that we could actually achieve, I
think that would still be a struggle to achieve.
May I just very briefly come back?
Cllr Robert Carington - 1:21:38
Cllr Martin Tett - 1:21:39
I completely accept not every council
was done a what's called a Section 114 notice, which is
effectively a bankruptcy notice.
That's because, as I said, what the government is seeking
to do politically is avoid them.
You know, it's effectively sweeping this under the carpet
by this what's called exceptional financial support,
which says, yeah, you're bankrupt,
but we'll sneak some money in through the back door.
So the fact that they aren't headlines as bankruptcies,
I get it.
The government has completely gone out of its way
to avoid that.
So there are a lot of local authorities in the position of exceptional financial support
at the moment.
So I think there is quite a big risk there.
Yes, ultimately they are under the government, but that doesn't mean that in the very short
term we couldn't actually have a default against us.
And again, just on the process, I'll be honest, I'm still very concerned about this proposal.
I can't see why this process cannot be speeded up.
If necessary, either the chief executive or the leader could delegate to the, for example,
deputy chief executive or to the deputy leaders so that actually people can be
contacted very swiftly to agree these things. We remove this oversight I think
at our risk that's my concern. These are high -risk areas and again I come back to
this is public money.
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:23:04
Cllr Alex Collingwood - 1:23:07
Coming up because obviously I work in this area now semi -retired but I will
support the officer.
I've worked with a large number of councils
across the whole country who do this methodology.
They have a matter of probably between 20 minutes and an hour
or so in which to decide to do these things.
They are all within the local authority space,
but you can then set some other limits in there.
And what the paper doesn't talk about
is what those limits would be.
So you'd have a time limit, you'd have an amount limit,
and you have a section 114 limit.
And that's not in the paper.
So I don't have a problem with the principle, Martin.
What I have the problem with is the detail.
We need to have that included within the paper
to tell you that you would do, say,
maximum 25 million pound per authority.
You do it less than 12 months.
And you actually would have the due diligence on the day,
because MUFG would give us the assurance that they've
done the due diligence with us and done the ratings.
And they do physically rate each of the individual authorities
from Greater Manchester combined all the way
through to collect and see where it happens to be.
But that is that piece.
But in the paper, you're not articulating
how you're going to do the other controls
and measures you have to put in place to make this work.
But the process in terms of actually physically enacting
this, the officers are exactly correct.
In terms of the physical process you do,
it's all electronic pretty much nowadays.
There's two main electronic platforms,
and that's how it pretty much works.
So therefore, when the officers are dealing with it,
they're literally looking at the screen going,
OK, I've got A, B, and C councils.
OK, I'll choose A or C or D or whatever it's going to be.
Chairman, can I just say, given that clarification,
Cllr Martin Tett - 1:24:47
sorry to butt in, but I think that's important clarification,
I would support with those clarifications,
those conditions in it, not clarification,
I think we need to have a strict set of criteria
against which this would apply rather than effectively removing
the controls per se.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:25:06
Yeah, I'm just gonna step in for a second here. Yeah, I think you know there is some detail missing in this paper
You know
I'd also like to see how much capital we would be waiting into this to generate it the controls that have been outlined
As well, you know
More detail is required before I think we can move forward with this bit
But we'll take the rest of the members questions and see of course
No, I just want to say thank you very much to Councillor Tett and Councillor Collingwood
Cllr Robert Carington - 1:25:33
and to yourself, Chair, those are all very valid points.
And as I was alluding to in my opening statement,
and as covered in page 17, page 71,
there is mention of due diligence.
I will accept further information is required,
and we have that information and further research
on certain bits of it is also required,
because obviously this isn't a decision yet,
so I don't want to rush it.
But I take your notes on board, and we will add that information
and tighten it up if that makes everyone happy.
Thank you.
We'll now go to Councillor Polk.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:26:10
Oh, sorry, apologies for your.
Just to come in on the point about limits.
So within the document at the moment,
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:26:14
we do specify an overall limit
for any local authority counterparty.
It's 10 million, but I accept the request
for further detail within that.
So we can provide that.
The other point I'd make is that as part of the due diligence
that we'd have in place here,
we would have a list of approved authorities
that we would lend to,
and that would have member oversight
via Councillor Carrington and the leader.
So there would be on that list effectively authorities
that we wouldn't lend to based on our internal assessment.
Clearly that's not something we'd put into public domain,
but that would be part of our decision making process
and would be shared with the leader
and with Robert Carrington as well.
So that would form part of the governance
to actually specify where we would be placing our funding
and that would be an essential part of the process.
I would suggest to speed the whole process up that it comes back to you as the Chairman
Cllr Alex Collingwood - 1:27:03
and the members of the committee just to articulate that internally if that makes sense and then
we can then, based on our experience, give you the feedback of what other authorities
have done to make sure we are in line with other authorities and that sort of stuff to
speed the whole process up.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:27:19
Yes, because mine thought that this will have to go to February 4 Council.
I was going to say if the chat is happy, I'm happy.
I'm never completely assured of it.
Councillor Pohl.
Thank you.
Cllr Chris Poll - 1:27:31
I hadn't seen the figure of 10 million previously.
It kind of helps a bit, but just from a new member of this committee,
there are a few things, and I appreciate Councillor Conlon's input.
You talk about oversight of any decision, yet you just spoke about 20 minutes to an hour for a decision to be made.
So presumably your phone is not on silent 24 hours a day, Councillor Carrington.
I mean it's a similar thing. Parish clerks would have a limit on their budget of what they can do before seeking approval.
so I'd written that before you mentioned about the oversight thing. Interesting, we are under
borrowed. I would have said that was good. If we're talking about investing to try and
make some return on that, we're talking about half a million pounds, I don't think that's a lot of
for the potential risk and you know I've been here long enough to remember the
Icelandic banks now I know you've said that these are government backed but I
could foresee you know that there must be a hundred and one reasons why there
may be a delay if it if it's a week a month you know that could cause us
So I have concerns.
Yeah, I put about, was this overnight borrowing?
What is the time scale of us lending to another authority?
And finally, this isn't cash reserves I take it,
because I was under the impression that at times
we only have 12 days worth of cash reserves in our balance.
So a lot of questions there, thank you.
I'm just trying to make sense of what I'm hearing.
So I'll take them in turn.
If I miss anything, please remind me.
On the risk of default, that potentially is there.
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:29:48
I'd say it's there with any counterparty that we invest in.
So we invest across all the various different financial
instruments that are available.
That risk is there.
We're trying to mitigate against that by the processes
and controls that we set out in the report, which
you've had a read through.
In terms of the lending timescale to other local authorities, it tends to be
short -term but it can vary from anything from a few days up to sort of six months
but we wouldn't look to really necessarily invest over a year if that
was the case it would generally be short -term investment so that's the
likely times timescale. You have to remind me of your third question.
Apologies, Castleport. Sorry, forget about the oversight, I just compared to
Cllr Chris Poll - 1:30:26
that Parish Clark's having a limit.
It was the fact that half a million pounds estimated
is small considering the risk.
And remembering about the Icelandic banks
and the fact that our cash reserves are only 12 days.
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:30:55
In terms of the amount of return that we would expect to get over and above what we currently
do, yes half a million is a relatively small amount of money, but all of it contributes
as you know to the investment in council services that's so crucial for us.
So as a treasury management function we really want to maximise within acceptable risk parameters
the return that the council is getting on the investment of its cash balances.
So, you know, your point is noted, but everything that we can get back for the council means
investment in council services, and that's our driving force here.
In terms of what we're investing, it is our cash balances.
So, like any big organisation, we will have, we manage our cash flow.
We can have many millions of pounds sitting in our bank account, which we need to then
place out.
And some days, on other days, that might be much, much smaller.
So, we are investing our cash balances.
That's what we're talking about here.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:31:49
Cllr Chris Poll - 1:31:53
Sorry, that'll do it. I might think of something. This is all very complicated.
For the person that doesn't understand this, you know, I'm representing people looking in from the outside to understand this.
It's just the potential risk. That's what concerns me.
and I think a lot of the members share your concerns,
Council Pohl, about the risk.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:32:13
Sorry, Chairman, if I may, I've just remembered,
Cllr Chris Poll - 1:32:17
it's the who has oversight then,
as elected representatives,
because you're talking about taking this way to officers,
and I agree, a small amount, as with Parrish -Clarks,
could be just bring it back to the next meeting
and we'll sign it off.
But the potential risk, that's what concerns me.
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:32:40
So in terms of day -to -day oversight, all investments that are placed are in line with the treasury
management strategy.
That's recommended by yourselves to full council, which full council then approve.
In terms of the day -to -day oversight and approval process, that is held within the officer structure.
So ultimately, the senior member of the finance team will sign off on any investment that
is placed.
There'll be a number of officers involved to that point to ensure the appropriate due
diligence is done and segregation of duties, so to ensure mitigation against fraud risk
and so on in terms of any investment that is placed.
That's the process from an officer perspective,
but no investment is placed that falls outside
of what's been agreed by members
as part of the treasury management strategy.
And that's a key factor in any investments
that are placed by officers.
Yeah.
I'll pay particular attention
to the treasury management strategy in future then.
Thank you.
Cllr Chris Poll - 1:33:27
Thank you, Councillor Paltin.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:33:29
Just on your point about the council
only having 12 days of gross income,
as I did clarify the deputy 151 officer yesterday,
you know things like schools that we give nearly half a billion pound a year
to I have a confirmation that we received that money in advance before we
send it out so you know I'm not using the section 151 officer being little
scare tactic there but the council's financial position is not as bad as may
Cllr Chris Poll - 1:33:58
have been. No no no that really wasn't my intention and I did say at times and I
did say cash balances so for anybody watching you know we're not running with
with only five pounds in the wallet.
Thank you very much.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:34:08
I've got Councillor Wilson and Councillor Sherwell.
Thank you, Chairman.
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 1:34:13
I take the point in terms of we need the funds, but I also have some concerns having been
involved in these discussions over the years of this committee.
I do feel there's a bit of a logical inconsistency in the way this is presented because it kind
because it's extremely low risk and don't worry
because the government are going to back it all.
But then we're going to have a series of people we wouldn't invest in.
But we've already just said, don't worry because the government's
going to back it all.
So it's kind of like, well, which side of that fence are we actually on?
And some of that is reputational.
Some of it is financial returns.
Because if it was about financial returns
and the government's going to back it all, you wouldn't mind.
But if it's, you know, there's just a logical inconsistency in this.
If I can come back to the thresholds, these are on page 79, which do list all of this.
And as the Deputy Section 151 Officer has alluded to, there is a £10 million limit.
it does also say there's a sector limit of 150 million pounds and a term of five
years, both of which are, you know, the five years is significantly longer than
perhaps what you've just suggested, which is a month, six months. And so in terms of
cheques and balances on all of this is are we tying ourselves because that list
of approved authorities you know has been already mentioned we're in a very
dynamic environment here and that could shift fairly rapidly for a particular
authority that suddenly discovers that it has a bigger situation on its hands
and that's not unheard of,
and particularly with elections coming up,
that suddenly things may come out of the woodwork
that might previously not have been revealed.
So we are in a very dynamic situation, I think,
from local government point of view.
And therefore, if we are,
and I do appreciate my colleagues'
professional judgement on this,
if we are taking that step forward,
do we not only therefore wish to review
the individual investment level limits,
but the sector limit and the timeframe?
So we need to take the whole thing in the round.
Timeframe.
So a number of points.
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:36:57
So in terms of the point about the logical inconsistency,
I think the idea of having a list of authorities
that we would not lend to,
it's really to try to provide assurance
or to address concerns around reputational risks.
So I think that's the reason for that being proposed
as part of this.
It's to make sure, to sort of ensure
that what's being proposed, we're
trying to address that point, I think is where we are.
In terms of the duration of the investments,
so yes, you're right on page 59, we set out the limits.
So $10 million per individual counterparty,
$150 million per sector, and the duration of five years.
The time scales I mentioned earlier, so up to about a year,
that's generally what we see in terms of the time of deals
or opportunities coming through.
So that's just to explain why there's a difference there.
But potentially, as far as the strategy is currently set out,
we would have the ability to invest for under $5 million.
In terms of those limits, I mean,
part of what we're asking you to do here
is to actually be happy with what's there.
And if you're not, and there's actually
limits that you think would be more appropriate,
then that's something we can take away
as part of taking the strategy forward through to full counsel.
So that is within the gift of this committee
to adjust that if needed.
And we can bring recommendations back
as to what that might look like,
but it'd be useful to hear your views on that.
And as you've asked, as you sort of mentioned,
this is an issue now.
But that's absolutely within your gift to change
if it's seen necessary.
So I think those are all the points that you raised.
Oh, the final one was about the dynamic nature
of the environment within which we're operating.
So yes, absolutely, things are changing
on a regular basis.
I think what we're trying to do in terms of the monitoring
of local authority counterparties
is to make sure that's a really proactive piece.
So that's something we'd keep an eye on
and keep review on on a sort of daily, weekly basis
to make sure we're as up to date as possible.
But there is always the possibility
that something can happen,
which just happens immediately
and may impact on what we decide to do
with a local authority investment.
But we would take that into consideration
at the time of placing any deal.
So yes, I acknowledge that the environment is dynamic,
but I think the controls we've set out,
the aim of that is to try and address that particular point
as much as within our gift.
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 1:39:03
I'm not sure even though I've done the Treasury management training that I'm best qualified
necessarily to come back with a sector limit or a timeframe.
I can.
But I know somebody who could.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:39:18
Do Councillor Collingwood's suggestions at the end because Councillor Sherville has been
waiting a while now?
Thank you, Chair.
Cllr Alan Sherwell - 1:39:26
In the distant past, I was the finance lead on one of our legacy councils, so I absolutely understand the point you're making about the need to be able to make decisions very quickly on short -term lending,
because Asbury Vale used to make quite a decent amount of money from being able to do that.
But the point about safeguards is really, really important.
And I think it's particularly important because most of those councils that are in trouble
aren't in trouble because they screwed up managing their normal services.
They're in trouble because they invested their money, unwisely, in various building projects or whatever.
It doesn't really matter what they are.
and those aren't necessarily obvious.
So I think, and I agree very much with what
Councillor Collingwood said, I think what we probably
need coming back to us is a statement of the safeguards
of exactly how we are making sure that we're not
making a daft decision.
And I'm not doubting the comments
that you and Councillor Carrington have made during this debate.
I'm absolutely sure they're right, but they are oral comments.
And I think I would feel much happier if we had something on paper
that said this is exactly how we protect the Council in these circumstances.
And Kate, that shouldn't be difficult for you to provide,
because you obviously from the answer you've given have that in the background.
Okay, Councillor Collingwood do you have a suggestion?
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:41:19
Well I will do the conclusion as chairman but do you have any specific suggestions?
Cllr Alex Collingwood - 1:41:25
Sorry okay Fiona first.
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:41:28
Just in response to Councillor Sherwell's points absolutely.
There's been a request for detail to come back to the committee.
we can ensure that statement of assurance is included as part of that.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:41:39
Alex.
Thank you, Jim.
Cllr Alex Collingwood - 1:41:43
To give people a bit more context, so table 8 on page 68 gives you a list roughly in November,
roughly what our cash balances look like.
We're about 276 million roughly, give or take at that time, and it fluctuates on an average basis.
And you'll notice that term deposit for UK bank was 100 million, right?
So therefore to me, to make it look like a balanced portfolio,
you would then change your sector limit for
local authorities back down from 150 to 100.
You'd set your individual limit to 10.
You would keep your time limit to maximum one year.
And you would have to come to, as an exception,
if you were gonna go from between one and five, you'd stick to one.
You do weekly reports to again the additional oversight because we're doing a fundamental change to policy rather than monthly reports.
So the democratic piece is done so the cabinet member needed to get to see the weekly reports, not monthly reports.
And there's a six month review that comes back to us to show us how did it work in operation that comes back to us in six months time.
So it's okay.
It's now started in 1st of March,
whenever it started, that in six months time,
we get a report back to us as the audit and governance
to see how did that work in practise.
That will be my proposal, Chairman.
Thank you.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:43:01
And you know, just to surmise the conversations that we had,
and you know, this is a really important function
of this committee because full council looks
to the audit and governance have had complete assurance
on treasury management.
And today, as in the previous agenda items,
I don't think we're there yet.
We don't have complete assurance.
It is a riskier move on the capital's cash.
And I do go back to the point that I've made
to the assistant chief executive before as well.
There has to be three levels of assurance in this council.
One from officers, one from the executive,
and one from the committees
and the backbench members as well.
We have to have all three levels.
So, you know, in terms of councils that we won't deal with,
I expect that information to be shared with this committee.
In terms of how this additional half million pound in treasury management income,
I expect to see how that's been modelled and whether or not it is going to be no more than
10 million for no more than a year with up to say for instance,
Council Collinwood's recommendation, 10 local authorities.
So we need to see more of the detail.
And if you want this to be recommended to be taken to full council in the February meeting, we need to see that detail quickly
So, I don't know Fiona if you and the section 151 officer want to have a conversation and report back to the chair and the
Vice -chair on how we're going to move this point forward
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:44:31
So chair on the requested information we can ensure that's circulated
So the process for getting this approved is to go it goes through to full council as you'll be aware in February
So there is no meeting between the Elder and Governance Committee between now and then of course
So we're happy to provide that information if members are happy to and I'm sorry
Sorry, it's a chairs decision, but if you're happy for us to circulate that outside of the formal meeting
Yes, I'm happy
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:44:55
Councillor Tett, do you have a question?
Cllr Martin Tett - 1:44:59
Sorry, I'm again newbie on this committee just trying to understand how that works then. Are we effectively being asked to delegate to you
formally that decision or if it's just
circulated to members of the committee, how does constitutionally that work? Do we vote
informally by email? Which I thought was not allowed. So I'll be honest with you, as it
stands in this paper, I can't support it. I will vote against as it stands. If we have
clear criteria that I find acceptable, means we've just had suggestions but we haven't
documented those, yeah, then I might support it.
Otherwise, I think we're exposing this council
to a big risk.
And I hate the expression up to, right?
Up to does a lot of heavy lifting in any paper,
because up to half a million could mean 10 points.
Yeah?
You know, you just don't know what that means.
So I'd like to see how that up to half a million
has been modelled to know that this is actually
what's on the table for this council if we take more risk.
So can you just explain to me maybe chairman how that decision -making formally is done constitutionally?
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:46:11
Okay. Thank you council tech. So obviously there are six things that these committee is asked to
recommend to full town council and the
Major part of the today's discussion has been point four which is the removal of additional requirements when trading with other local authorities
Would you agree council to?
Cllr Martin Tett - 1:46:33
Sorry, you're asking me whether the debate's been around point four.
Yes, it has been.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:46:37
So in terms of treasury management points one, two, three, five, and six.
Cllr Martin Tett - 1:46:47
If there are no changes to the existing policy, as I understand it, then obviously I concur
with that.
My concern is with the change to policy.
Sorry for your interest.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:46:55
So in terms of points one, two, three, five and six,
there are no significant changes are there?
Chairman, sorry.
Appendix one would cheque, which is point five,
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 1:47:06
recommendation would change if we change the threshold.
Four and five, thank you, Councillor Wilson.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:47:10
So one, two, three and six.
There are no significant changes are there?
That's correct.
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:47:16
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:47:18
Right, so our members agreed on points one, two, three
and six to recommend to full town council the strategy.
Sorry, I was at town council last night to a quarter to ten.
To a full council, our members contend with those points.
Agreed, thank you.
Right, on point four, members have raised concerns
about the following.
How the cash interest has been modelled
up to an additional half a million pound,
and the deputy section 151 officer has agreed to share that modelling with the committee.
Secondly, proposed list of councils that would be acceptable for the council to invest with
and a list of those that the council will not invest with will be circulated to members of this committee.
Is that correct and agreed?
And the next point was the recommendation from Councillor Collingwood on allocations,
which was, Councillor Conlon, please correct me if I'm wrong, but no more than a year investment as discussed,
a total capital limit of £100 million, a local authority limit of £10 million.
That was the recommendation. Our members agreed on that.
Plus weekly reports, not monthly reports.
Cllr Alex Collingwood - 1:48:38
To weekly reports, not monthly reports.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:48:42
To the proposals in the paper which was the leader and the cabinet member for resources.
Cllr Alex Collingwood - 1:48:48
And then a six months review to come back to this committee to see how it operated in practise.
And then a six months review to come back in practise.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:48:52
So that is the work that the officers have been tasked to share with the committee.
That then goes back to Councillor Tett's point about how does this committee then approve it prior to the full Council, not Town Council, at our February meeting.
Is that where we were, Councillor Tett?
Cllr Martin Tett - 1:49:13
Yes, I mean, I'm slightly confused to have to miss on this insofar as are we effectively
delegated to you to make a decision on our behalf, yeah?
Or are we having something circulated informally or are we amending the recommendation along
the lines of Councillor Collingwood, Alex's proposal?
In which case what we're doing is we're approving an amended recommendation formally and if
so is that acceptable to Councillor Carrington and the 151 officer? I'm also
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:49:48
probably going to look just to Glenn to weigh in as our deputy monetary officer.
Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer - 1:49:53
It is the case that if you have the clarifications you think you want and
you're agreed upon you can make that as part of your conclusions under that
particular point and the Deputy Section 151 officer and the cabinet member will take that. Otherwise than that you are
expressing concerns that you want addressed and clarified.
It's not possible for a decision to be delegated
to the chairman of a committee.
However, you can raise the points and concerns
that you want.
The officers can work that out in consultation
with the chairman and then make the decision.
It would be a delegated decision back again
from the officer.
But that outside consultation with yourselves
and then the final consultation with the chairman
on what you would do having got your respective views
with them being able to be done by the officers concerned.
Councillor Tett.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:50:45
Cllr Martin Tett - 1:50:47
Councillor Pohl was reaching the button just for me.
I'll be honest, I'm slightly concerned about this.
I mean, I'm not trying to be difficult,
just be really clear,
because I'm sure I'm going to sit in the naughty step
for this, but I've been there,
I've been through the Iceland saga,
I've been through the local authority,
very close to us saga. You know I have concerns about this as I said Upto does a lot of heavy
lifting here. I'm personally not happy about supporting this as it stands. I'm happy to be
in a minority but I'm just conscious of the risk to this council. Okay thank you councillor poll.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:51:24
Cllr Chris Poll - 1:51:26
Thank you. Since our first item today or one of the first items we discussed was about a deferment
two actions then I wonder if we're not better off with a deferment here until
the concrete proposal has been made we can discuss and vote on properly.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:51:45
I'm looking at you Councillor Carrington. Well I think as it clearly says I mean
Cllr Robert Carington - 1:51:49
that doesn't work because we have full council in February so that's going to
be difficult I think. Glenn has laid out a way forward which I think is the way of
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:52:01
So there obviously still are concerns from members. The Treasury Management Strategy has to be approved. Does it have to be approved at the February meeting, then?
Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer - 1:52:16
Hand on top to know that about the third of the Deputy One Fair One Officer on that point.
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:52:22
It will need to be approved at the February full council meeting so it can be affected from the first of April. So yes, it would need to be.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:52:27
Okay, but the only thing that I suppose, again, managing risk, which is what we're here to
do, is the increase in interest income is not forecast in the MTFP, so it doesn't have
a budgetary implication as we clarified in our meeting yesterday.
So if we didn't make the change and we asked for the additional work and then brought it
back at a later stage, is that not possible?
I
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:52:51
Think it would mean that we would be potentially working without a working trip
I fully formally adopted Treasury management strategy going into the new financial year
Which is not in line with sector best practise and not something that I would be comfortable with from a one -to -five on perspective
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:53:07
Council both I
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 1:53:11
Think I might be asking what you just if we didn't accept the recommendation and that
we revert to the existing practise, is that an issue?
And I suppose specifically, what have we modelled in the budget
in terms of treasury management income from which
this strategy, or is the up to half a million pounds
over and above the budget that has been put together?
Because if it's...
Sorry, I can't read semaphore, Chen.
If it's not in the budget, and we have to have a policy
that we're all comfortable with in place for full council,
then the easiest constitutional position is to say
we do not accept the recommendation on fall,
and that we...
the committee wishes to approve the policy as it was previously,
and that if there is still a desire to bring back a change,
we can deal with that at the next meeting, the April meeting.
Yes, I think that was where we were getting to.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:54:31
Okay, just sorry Alex.
Cllr Alex Collingwood - 1:54:40
Based on the technical questions you're gonna need,
it's a one pager that we can have circulated relatively quickly.
And we would have clarity of exactly what we've been asked to sign off for.
To me, it would not be beyond the wit of man for
us to have a half hour meeting before full council on the same day.
to go right, okay, based on the fact that we would have been circulated in advance,
the answer to the questions we're questioning, we're rightly questioning, right?
We're saying, okay, give us the clarity we need.
The officers can give that to us probably within a day or two, to be honest,
of exactly how they modelled it, what they've done, how they've done it.
And then we could have the sit down for half an hour and go, okay,
just go through the clarity, is it a yes or is it a no?
I mean, you revert back to original policy or you go, actually, yes,
we're now consent, yes, we're now happy to go forward.
You used to do a half past three on that.
Yes.
I have to say, and we do need to draw this to a close.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:55:34
I think the simplest thing is to have a short meeting
prior to the full meeting of council
to agree on these final points.
I have a problem with that.
We could decide not to approve it.
Exactly.
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 1:55:51
And then you can't go,
because all the papers will have been issued.
So it has to be handled before the full council papers go out.
But I said the meeting prior to full council,
I didn't say on the day of full council.
Sorry, sorry.
OK, sorry.
There was a suggestion.
No, no, no.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:56:05
As long as we meet statutory deadlines,
but we will have a meeting prior to the meeting.
We have to have made a decision.
Yes, prior to the papers being published.
The papers being published.
Yes, the clear -hearted days.
Yeah, and where council is the last Wednesday in February.
Yes.
Glenn.
Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer - 1:56:25
It is the case that we can stand up another meeting of this committee if that's what you wish to get a straightforward position on the matter
So that you're all hearing the same thing at the same time and agreeing it in the same way ahead of in enough time to
Avoid the deadlines for full council as well in the issuing of the agenda. That is a possible thing to do.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:56:45
Okay, so our members contend that we have an additional meeting to review
this proposal in suitable time for the papers to be presented for council to enable this decision to be made.
Cllr Chris Poll - 1:56:58
Councillor Pottle. Is the requirement that that is held and broadcast in in public or is that something that can be done via Teams?
Bearing in mind it may just be a half hour meeting.
Again I'm looking at the deputy. No if you wanted formally as a committee to consider the
Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer - 1:57:12
consideration of this and be satisfied as a committee that your due diligence has been done in public you'll be doing that as a formal
convening of a committee a new committee date established gender published in public
if however, I don't want to go into it if however particularly but if all was to do the
Alternative of an informal consultation afterwards. Yes, you could do that on teams
But you be doing under a delegation so to speak in consultation with the chairman
Sounds like where you might be edging towards is having a clear new committee short to have the extra detail you're after.
In which case that is entirely possible, but it would be in public just as this session has been.
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:57:54
You know, I just want to sum up. I think we have to obviously ensure that members' concerns are addressed.
And if they're not addressed, then the recommendation has to be that we don't proceed with this new strategy.
We also as a local authority cannot be seen to not taking serious consideration to potentially raising
additional money that all councils desperately need right now.
So I think for the sake of a small meeting to discuss a one agenda item that is to the benefit of the council and
the residents. So with members agreement
I would like to defer this agenda item to a prior meeting prior to the full council meeting in February.
Just do the entire gender item.
Cllr Martin Tett - 1:58:37
Richard and I'm just being a pedant again but I just want to know because you went
through separately just now items one two three and six but I now defer you to the entire
I would imagine just to ensure that officers have the full opportunity to make sure that
Cllr Matthew Walsh - 1:58:54
nothing that is in four actually has an impact on one or two or six the easiest thing to
do to ensure that we are doing the best for the council is to defer the entire agenda
item and cover it all as a separate thing at an extraordinary meeting. That is my recommendation.
Are members agreed? That is unanimous. Thank you very much.
We now move on to Agenda Item 11, which is exclusion of the public to resolve under Section

11 Exclusion of the public

100A4 of the Local Government Act. The public will be excluded from the meetings on grounds
that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in the paragraph
indicated in part one of schedule 12.
For all of those people watching the webcast,
thank you very much for today.
Thank you.