Issue - meetings

The Senior Policy and Programme Manager introduced the report and drew members’ attention to the proposed revised terms of reference for the committee, which followed the CIPFA suggested terms of reference for local authority audit committees as set out in Appendix 4 of the report.  The proposed amendments followed an Internal Audit assessment against the CIPFA Code of Practice for the Governance Internal Audit in UK Local Government as set out in the new Global Internal Audit Standards.

Councillor Becker highlighted that Appendix 2 reported that there were currently no outstanding code of conduct complaints and congratulated officers for their work in enabling this achievement.

The Senior Policy and Programme Manager, the Director (Legal) and the Director (Finance) responded to members’ questions, including on the revised terms of reference.  The following points were highlighted:

a)    Including training on the revised terms of reference as part of the annual member training programme.

b)    With regard to the requirement to produce an annual report and the appropriate format for this report, the Director (Legal) confirmed this would be added to the committee annual work programme and officers would look for examples of good practice from other local authorities.

c)    Members expressed some concern about the requirement to ensure that external audit provided good value for money, given the lack of flexibility over the annual fees.  However, it was noted that the committee did regularly challenge the external audit providers on this point.

RESOLVED:

1.              That the contents of the report be noted, including the progress made against the actions in the Annual Governance Statement.

2.              That the Director (Legal), under delegated authority adopt the updated draft Terms of Reference for the Audit and Governance Committee, as set out in Appendix 4 of the report.  The amended terms of reference will be included in Article 9 of the Council’s constitution and the changes reported to Full Council later this year for noting in accordance with Article 15.