Issue - meetings

REPORT OF THE SERVICE DIRECTOR – RESOURCES

A year end report on the Councils' Risk Management Governance for 2023/24.

RESOLVED: That the Finance, Audit and Risk Committee noted and provided comments to Cabinet on this report

RECOMMENDATION TO CABINET: That Cabinet notes and provides comments to Council on this report.

REASONS FOR RECOMMENDATION:

(1)   The responsibility for ensuring the management of risks is that of Cabinet.

(2)   This Committee has responsibility to monitor the effective development and operation of Risk Management

Audio recording – 1 hour 29 minutes 8 seconds

The Service Director – Resources presented the report entitled ‘Annual Report on Risk Management’ and highlighted that:

·       The Committee received two reports on risk management, a mid-year and an end of year report.

·       Risk was an important part of governance, the report aimed to give the Committee an oversight of how risk management was operating in the Council.

·       There was a risk management framework, with the definitions of likelihood and impact and this was detailed at 8.2.4 of the report.

·       The corporate risks matrix for the year-end 2023-24 Council Delivery Plan, was shown at 8.25 of the report.

·       There were 3 overarching risks that had effect on the delivery of any project namely, the financial sustainability of the Council, resourcing and cyber security.

·       The resourcing risk related to staff recruitment and retention, and work was ongoing to make roles more attractive.

·       Cyber security related to cyber-attacks and the potential impact of a successful attack and the significant effect this would have on the operation of the Council.

·       The details of the year-end services risks could be found at 8.2.6 of the report.

·       The details relating to how risks were reviewed were stated in 8.3 of the report, all risks had mitigation in place and the scores were reviewed on a regular basis.

·       A horizon scanning project had been undertaken to look at future risks as detailed at 8.5.3 of the report.

·       There were details of the insurance arrangements of the Council in paragraph 9 of the report.

·       The report discussed Business Continuity and the processes put in place.

·       Health and safety was a known risk, keeping people safe reduced their risks and those of the Council and this improved the potential of the Council to achieve the required outcomes.

·       The risk management action plan for 2023-24 was detailed in paragraph 12 of the report with proposed actions for 2024-25 highlighted in paragraph 13.

The following Members asked questions:

·       Councillor Daniel Wright-Mason

·       Councillor Vijaiya Poopalasingham

·       Councillor Paul Ward

In response to questions, the Service Director – Resources stated that:

·       There had been risks associated with the Baldock fire, the recovery work, time and cost to make the area safe and these had been included within the report. It was noted that there was still a risk of fires happening in the district but as this was a remote possibility, the risk was not included in the register.

·       Horizon scanning and post Brexit legislation details would be provided outside of this meeting.

·       The current risk scores and their mitigation were shown at 8.25 of the report, more in-depth information could be supplied to future meetings in an appendix.

RESOLVED: That the Finance, Audit and Risk Committee noted and provided comments to Cabinet on this report

RECOMMENDATION TO CABINET: That Cabinet notes and provides comments to Council on this report.

REASONS FOR RECOMMENDATION:

(1)   The responsibility for ensuring the management of risks is that of Cabinet.

(2)   This Committee has responsibility to monitor  ...  view the full minutes text for item 13