Agenda item

(Report of the Audit Manager)

Ms Rebecca Neill (Internal Audit Manager) presented the Risk Management Update report which provided the Committee with their routine risk management update.  She summarised the key points and reminded all that at the previous committee meeting it had been agreed to review the risk register to align it with the new strategic plan and also to incorporate the 3 lines of assurance model.  She said this work had now been completed and was detailed at Appendix 1 of the report.  She said that Covid-19 has had a significant impact on the Council’s risk management and this was reflected in the New Strategic Risk Register.  She explained that the table at 3.6 illustrated the linkages between what were the previous corporate risks and what are the new strategic risks going forward.

Ms Neill said that following the leadership team’s risk management workshop, 7 strategic risks had been identified and they are reflected at section 3.7 of the report. She said there were 2 risks currently outside of appetite at the moment – SR1 (non-achievement of the Council’s key priorities due to availability of finance) and SR2 (resilience of teams to effectively respond to a further disruption to services).  The Chairman stated with regards to SR2 that considering what has happened in terms of the pandemic, he personally thinks the District Council has responded well and although it is a negative report, in terms of that risk, how much worse could it get?

Ms Neill said that there was a feeling of fatigue amongst managers and the leadership team, who have had to deal with the Council’s response to Covid-19.  With this risk, it was felt that if there was to be a multi-layer disruption, for example, a second wave coupled with flooding or seasonal flu pressures and Brexit then this may strain the Council’s resilience and response.

Councillor Grange stated that the way that the register was now presented was better and the 3 lines of assurance model was welcomed.  However, she stated that some of the risks as described were not necessarily of a strategic nature i.e. SR1 – non-achievement of key priorities due to the availability of finance - she felt that there are other reasons that could result in non-delivery and SR2 picks up on this a little.  She asked if broadening out these risks and making them less specific for the future could be considered.  Also, she stated in terms of SR6 – failure to innovate and take the learning from the Covid-19 situation could be broadened to include any situation, not just Covid-19.  This was noted.

The Committee asked in terms of SR1 and SR2 that these needed to be actively managed and the committee asked whether it was possible to get a high level brief on what was being done to manage these risks.  Ms Neill explained that the actions were detailed within the actions column on Appendix 1.  Mr Thomas, as risk owner of SR1, stated that Local Governments have been subject to significant financial planning uncertainty with the spending review, the move to 75% business rates retention, the fair funding review and the review of the new homes bonus and this had been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.  Mr Thomas advised that all of these reviews had now been delayed by a further year until 1 April 2022 and a one year settlement was therefore being implemented for 2021/22.  He said at the current time the impact that the Covid-19 pandemic has on the Council’s financial position is very uncertain with the report to Cabinet on 7 July 2020 indicating a range of between £1.281m and £4.541m.  However, since the report, the government has provided additional funding to the Council of £140,417, introduced an income “quarantee” sharing sales, fees and charges losses and enabled business rate and council tax collection fund deficits to be spread over 3 years rather than one.

Mr Thomas said as part of the development of the MTFS, we have commenced earlier than normal with an enhanced service and financial planning process where we have encouraged Heads of Service to consider the impact of ongoing funding reductions of c10% together with options for mitigating the impact.

RESOLVED: The Committee noted the risk management update and received assurance on actions taking place to manage the Council’s most significant risks.