Issue - meetings

To consider the draft Annual Report of the Audit and Governance Committee 2023/24.

The committee considered the Annual Audit and Governance Committee Report covering the period June 2023 – March 2024, which would be subsequently presented by Full Council.

The committee noted that the Chair and Vice Chair had submitted a number of additional comments in relation to the report to officers to consider. It was proposed, seconded and subsequently carried that the approval of the report be deferred and rescheduled to the December 2024 Audit and Governance Committee meeting.

Further comments were raised as summarised below:

·       Item 5 (Internal Audit) it was suggested that this section of the report referred to the Annual Internal Audit Opinion presented to the committee in July 2024 and the limited rating provided.

·       Amended report to be circulated to the committee (including substitutes present at the meeting) for final comments before being reconsidered by the committee in December 2024.

A number of additional comments were raised in relation to the 2024-25 priorities of the Audit and Governance committee, summarised below:

·       Consideration of the impact of the transformation programme and the implications this would have for the Audit and Governance Committee was felt to be significant.

·       The committee had previously considered a review of vacancy rates across the organisation and suggested that in addition to this, each service should be provided with an analysis of the impact of vacancies in their area (any detrimental effects, total number of agency staff, and overall savings from vacancies freezes).

·       Financial controls and how these could be reported back to the committee was an area of interest for the committee (what the financial controls were and examples of when they have not worked as expected).

RESOLVED (unanimously):

That the Audit and Governance Committee

1.    Agree to defer the approval of the final Annual Report to December 2024.