Agenda item

To consider the Annual Governance Statement 2022/23.

David Bowater, Senior Corporate Support Manager, presented the draft Annual Governance Statement (AGS) 2022/23.

The officer explained that the draft AGS 2022/23 had been prepared in line with the Local Code of Corporate Governance and following advice from the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA).

The government had recently released draft statutory guidance on the Best Value Duty for local authorities, which had been developed in response to interventions at other authorities. This set out what it saw as a well functioning council. One measure was an AGS, prepared in line with the CIPFA / SOLACE framework, so Wiltshire Council was already meeting that element of the guidance.

Senior officers met regularly to deliver meaningful review through the AGS and would also respond to the consultation on the Best Value Duty guidance.

Any improvement actions identified in last year’s AGS which were still amber rated were rolled forward to this year’s AGS, so that the Committee could monitor the actions. Comments from the Committee and from the external auditor would be reflected in the final draft of the AGS which would be brought back to the Committee for formal approval when the Statement of Accounts were considered.

Maria Doherty, Head of Democracy, Governance and Customer Services spoke to paragraph 13 of the report (page 28 of the agenda) and the yellow highlighted section in Principle G of the AGS (page 40 of the agenda). This section had been left incomplete as the letter from the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) had yet to be received at the time of agenda publication. A copy of the letter had now been received, which would be presented to the Standards Committee for consideration. A summary of the key findings was given. The percentage of complaints upheld (of those the Ombudsman chose to investigate) was 58%, with the average for a similar council at 72%. Compliance with Ombudsman recommendations was 100%, whereas in similar councils the average was 99%. With regard to satisfactory remedies provided prior to Ombudsman involvement, the figure was 6% as opposed to 13% in similar councils. This would be looked into further.

Perry Holmes, Director Legal and Governance and Monitoring Officer, spoke to paragraph 10 of the report (page 27 of the agenda) regarding the Monitoring Officer comments included within the AGS (page 39 and 40 of the AGS). As Monitoring Officer, he had a statutory duty to report any illegality by the council, he had chosen to report on this within the AGS.

The first comment was regarding the placement of two children in unregistered provision. Unregistered provision was when a child who was being provided with some form of ‘care’ was living somewhere that was not registered with Ofsted. There were very good reasons why those decisions were made by the Director of Children’s services in her statutory role. In response to questions it was confirmed that the two children were still in the unregistered provision. There was a full audit trail of all decisions involved, strong controls in place to mitigate risks and the provider had now applied to Ofsted to become registered. Escalation protocols in relation to these decisions and across the council were explained.

The other Monitoring Officer comment within the AGS was in relation to the non-completion of accounts. The Council had a technical legal duty to make documents supporting their audited accounts available during the first 10 working days of June each year. The Council had been unable to do this due to the delays in signing off the accounts. However, the website had been updated to make the position clear to residents.

The Chairman, seconded by Cllr Chuck Berry, proposed that the Committee consider the draft AGS as at appendix 1 of the report.

During debate, Members welcomed the transparency in relation to the Monitoring Officer comments. Further questions were asked around governance and whether political group rules were subject to oversight. The Monitoring Officer explained that the rules for political groups were for politicians, so officers would not get involved. However, senior officers did liaise with senior members of the political groups and had open debate, so there were good relationships and influence.

Members queried how Wiltshire Council compared to other authorities in relation to the 2 issues commented on by the Monitoring Officer, and what sort of incidents other authorities reported on. It was explained that 2 children in unregistered provision was low, with some councils having 20 children in unregistered provision. In regard to the accounts, many authorities had outstanding accounts, some with accounts older than ours outstanding. The Monitoring Officer explained that other authorities sometimes reported on investments in commercial properties or other investments which had not gone to plan. Reference was made to Stone Circle (Wiltshire Council’s commercial housing development company) and the Monitoring Officer confirmed that the governance around that was good. This was also reported on annually to the Committee.

Members highlighted that they felt the tone in the draft AGS regarding the accounts was somewhat different to those included in the next agenda item.

The process regarding the AGS was clarified. At this stage the document stood on its own, however, final sign off and approval of the AGS would occur when the Statement of Accounts came to the committee. Any comments from the auditors and committee could be reflected in the final version, and the committee would be able to assess it at that point.

The significant corporate risks identified by SWAP and reported on to the Committee and within the AGS were queried as to whether there as any illegality. It was confirmed that there had not been and that you could not include all details on every risk within the AGS. The Committee had oversight of those risks due to SWAP’s regular reporting and the updates received from service areas.

Questions were asked surrounding the governance of lower tiers of local government (city, town and parish councils). It was confirmed that these were their own entities and were responsible for their own governance and compliance. Those entities were also audited by external auditors. It was,

Resolved:

To consider the Draft Annual Governance Statement 2022/23 at appendix 1 to the report.