Agenda item

Debbie Hogg, Director of Corporate Resources presented the draft Annual Governance Statement (AGS) for 2018/19, which outlined the statutory requirements upon the Council to prepare, approve and publish an Annual Governance Statement.  The report set out the process for the preparation of the Statement, which the Committee was asked to review and to endorse the initial outline draft Statement, prior to publication and consultation of the Accounts in July 2019. 

Members’ attention was drawn to the diagram as set out in paragraph 11, where it was noted that this year, the Council had taken a top down and bottom up approach in the formulation of the AGS, in order to provide Members with a more comprehensive position regarding key governance issues.  Items on the AGS would be reviewed as part of the quarterly resource performance management cycle, which would also identify emerging issues that were of concern for elevation to the Governance Group. This allowed the Council to react to emerging issues, and where possible, prevent entry onto future ’AGS's. The timing of the production of the AGS had been aligned with the production of the Annual Report of the Head of Internal Audit, to allow both reports to be considered at the same meeting. 

10 key areas for improvement had been effectively managed to the extent that they were no longer significant and were considered complete in the context of the AGS.  7 new significant issues had been identified. An update on the 3 key areas identified during previous years that remained an issue in 2018-19, was also provided.  The key actions to mitigate the issues identified for 2018/19 would be reviewed before the production of the final Annual Governance Statement in June 2019, so it would reflect the up to date position. It was highlighted that several of the issues for mitigation represented risks, whereas several of the items from prior years were actual governance failures.

Whilst recognising that some items had now been removed from the AGS which was welcomed, the Chair sought an update on progress of those items identified in the report that remained an issue, in particular in relation to ‘Data Quality’.  It was reported that additional resources had been established to provide support in this area and was being aligned with the implementation of the Doncaster Integrated Peoples System (DIPS), Care Management system for Children’s Adults and Education Services. However, it was highlighted that this would take some time to implement and after that maintaining data quality would be an ongoing task.

Kathryn Smart referred to the current 10 key areas of risk identified on the AGS and asked whether the services had the capacity and capability to deliver and make significant progress on the issues, in view of some of the issues previously on the AGS continued to be recurring in nature.  It was acknowledged that some issues would be enduring in nature and would require time and capacity to implement.

A question was asked in relation to how Doncaster compared to other authorities in terms of disclosure, whether there was consistency across authorities and whether there were any key lessons to be learned that were deemed as significant issues.  Members were informed that whilst no formal benchmarking had been undertaken regarding AGS reports and issues, there was some alignment between the types of key risks that all authorities were currently facing.  Some risks would be specific to each authority and all authorities would be challenged in terms of resources and the impact of future risks. It was reported that most authorities followed a similar approach to that of Doncaster, who followed the CIPFA model, but the Council was also disclosing key governance risks as well as failures which was felt to be a more prudent and helpful approach to management of the AGS items.

During further discussion, the Vice-Chair sought confirmation regarding when the draft Local Plan would be presented to Overview and Scrutiny, which, due to its complex nature, required Members to have sufficient time to consider the matter. The Director of Corporate Services confirmed that the draft Plan would be submitted to Overview and Scrutiny on 29th April, 2019 and gave an undertaking to ensure that it was provided to Members of that Committee.

Councillor Mark Houlbrook, as local ward Member for Thorne-Moorends Town Council spoke of how the Town Council was currently in the process of developing its Neighbourhood Plan and as part of the process, the Council had a duty to work with key stakeholders. He sought clarity in relation to what risk would there be to the authority of not completing the Local Plan within the required timeframe and what impact this would have.  Members were informed that the Council had made preparations for the Plan and had due process to follow, both within the Council and with the local Planning Inspectorate, which was an extensive process. It was explained that there was a timeline in place and there were further stages of the process for the Plan to go through, prior to formal adoption by the Council.

RESOLVED that the initial outline of the draft Annual Governance Statement, prior to being published for consultation as part of the Draft Accounts in May 2019, be endorsed.