To consider the above report

Members considered a proposal that the audit oversight functions currently undertaken by the Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Panel be transferred to a separate Audit and Governance Committee.

Councillor Price commented that she supported the proposal. She asked what were the necessary skills of the Chairman and Vice Chairman?

Councillor Johnson responded that the core skills were financial ones, with the ability to robustly and accurately challenge and without fear or favour, hold the council to account, and also to propose and initiate suggestions to strengthen the council’s overall position of robust governance. It was for exactly this reason that his recommendation included a Vice Chairman who was a leading member of the opposition.

Councillor Bond commented that CIPFA had recommended the potential of an independent Chairman, however he acknowledged that getting in that sort of expertise would be a challenge. Other authorities with a separate audit function had Chairmen appointed from the majority party. The proposal was part of wider changes. The financial controls covered governance and people so for example an officer capital programme board had been established.  He believed the council now had the right people in place in the roles of S151 officer and Head of Finance.

Councillor Jones commented that she had been part of the Constitution Review Working Group and had at that time spoken against merging the audit functions with Overview and Scrutiny. She had also been advocating the return to a separate committee for some time. She was therefore pleased with the proposal. She commented that the final recommendation read as though the Monitoring Officer could update the constitution when they wished and how they wished and she felt that the wording should be tightened.

Councillor Johnson confirmed that the delegation referred expressly to the changes detailed in the report and he was therefore happy for the recommendation to be amended to clarify this point.

Councillor Price commented that she had been unable to find the completed Equality Impact Assessment on the website. The Managing Director confirmed that it had been published to the website and a link would be sent to Councillor Price.

Councillor Rayner commented that she felt it was a great idea to separate the audit function out. The Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Panel was doing  a fantastic job but the workload was very heavy.

Councillor Johnson referred to the CIPFA report; it had been clear that this was one of their key recommendations. His personal view was that, in hindsight, it was perhaps not the best thing to have removed a separate Audit Committee.

It was proposed by Councillor Johnson, seconded by Councillor Rayner, and:

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That full Council notes the report and:

i)          Approves amendments to the constitution detailed in Appendix A to establish an Audit and Governance Committee.

ii)         Appoints Councillor Bateson as Chairman of the Audit and Governance Committee and Councillor L. Jones as Vice Chairman of the Audit and Governance Committee for the remainder of the municipal year.

iii)       Meeting dates for the remainder of the municipal year be set as:

·         14 September 2020

·         9 November 2020

·         16 February 2021

iv)       Notes the terms of reference of the Cabinet Transformation Sub-Committee detailed in Appendix B.

v)         Delegates authority to the Monitoring Officer to update and publish the council constitution in line with the recommendations in the report.