Issue - meetings

That the Risk Management Policy for 2024/25, the Risk Appetite Statement for 2024/25 and the current Corporate Risk Register be approved.

Councillor Cutler introduced the report and advised that the policy had been considered at Audit and Governance Committee on 29 February 2024 and their comments were included at paragraph 6 of the report and would be considered for future action.

At the invitation of the Leader, Councillors Godfrey and Wallace addressed Cabinet as summarised briefly below.

Councillor Godfrey

He welcomed that the current policy had been amended to take account of comments made the previous year at Audit and Governance Committee. He emphasised that the agreed risk policy should be reflected in the management of major projects and individual projects’ risk registers.  He also requested that additional risk training be offered for councillors and officers.

Councillor Wallace

He questioned where the risk associated with the council’s declaration of a nature emergency was referred to?  He believed that the council was missing opportunities to go greener faster citing lack of funding as a reason.  In general, he considered that the council should be delivering on the commitments it had made on tackling the climate emergency.

Councillor Cutler responded to the comments including agreeing with the importance of ongoing training in order to embed the treatment of risk within the council.  He also highlighted that the risk register did have a higher level of risk in relation to climate emergency.

Cabinet agreed to the following for the reasons set out in the report and outlined above.

RESOLVED:

That the Risk Management Policy for 2024/25, the Risk Appetite Statement for 2024/25 and the current Corporate Risk Register be approved.

The Corporate Head of Finance introduced the report, advising there were no material changes proposed to the policy, risk appetite or process.  Paragraph 7 of the report summarised the changes since the previous year.

The Corporate Head of Finance and the Cabinet Member for Finance and Performance responded to members’ questions on the report.  The following points were raised for further review by Cabinet:

a)    Risks considered when acquiring properties as part of the new homes programme should include the build quality of the home; with quality assurance measures put in place to mitigate this.

b)    In connection with risk CR011, reference should be to ‘district’ paths and car parks, not ‘city’.

c)    The consideration of opportunities as well as risks should continue. 

RESOLVED:

That the Cabinet Member for Finance and Performance have regard to the discussion of this committee on the policy and the points outlined above in his presentation of report CAB3453 which would be considered by Cabinet at its meeting on 14 March 2024.