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Agenda and draft minutes

Venue: Council Chamber Council Offices Market Street Newbury

Contact: Andy Day/Moira Fraser/Stephen Chard 

Items
No. Item

23.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 93 KB

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meetings of this Committee held on 27 November 2017 and the special meeting on the 07 December 2017.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Minutes of the meeting held on 27 November 2017 were approved as a true and correct record and signed by the Chairman subject to Item 21 Amendments to the Scheme of Delegation, Page 2, last line replace ‘he’ with ‘the’..

The Minutes of the special meeting held on the 07 December 2017 were approved as a true and correct record and signed by the Chairman subject to the inclusion of the following amendments: Councillors Langford and Mayes were not present nor was Councillor Graham Bridgman although Councillor Keith Chopping was. The meeting started at 7.45pm and ended at 7.49pm.

Matters Arising:

Item 21 (Amendments to the Scheme of Delegation) - the amendments were being finalised and published

Councillor Cole noted that the Committee had previously agreed that an outstanding actions log would be produced. It was noted that the log would be included in the paperwork for the 23 April 2018 meeting.

The Committee noted that this would be Ian Priestley’s last Governance and Ethics Committee meeting and they wished to place on record their thanks for all the support that he had provided to it over a very long period of time.

 

24.

Declarations of Interest

To remind Members of the need to record the existence and nature of any personal, disclosable pecuniary or other registrable interests in items on the agenda, in accordance with the Members’ Code of Conduct.

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest received.

25.

Forward Plan pdf icon PDF 78 KB

Purpose: To consider the Forward Plan for the next 12 months.

Minutes:

The Committee considered the Governance and Ethics Committee Forward Plan (Agenda Item 4).

All references to the Chief Auditor or the Chief Internal Auditor to be replaced with the Audit Manager.

Ian Priestley explained that in relation to item 5 (GE3324 Outcome of the External Review of Internal Audit) it had originally been envisaged that officers from Reading and Wokingham would do the audit for the Council and vice versa. However both other Councils had now brought an external organisation (CIPFA) in to do the work and therefore West Berkshire Council would have to do the same. This would cost the Council circa £4k and there would be a delay in bringing the report back to the Committee. Councillor Lee Dillon queried whether the authorities would be willing to do the work if a reduced cost could be negotiated. Mr Priestley explained that they did not have the resources to undertake the work.

Councillor Dillon queried whether it would be appropriate to review the General Data Protection Regulations implementation at a future meeting. It was agreed that as this was not within the remit of the Committee and that as Scrutiny was already looking into this it would not be added to the Forward Plan.

RESOLVED that the Governance and Ethics Committee Forward Plan, as amended, be noted.

 

26.

Challenging Communication Issues - Update to the Officers Code of Conduct pdf icon PDF 91 KB

Purpose: To advise of proposed amendments to the Code of Conduct relating to Officers use of Social Media.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Committee considered a report (Agenda Item 5) which explained that in view of the increased use of social media as a form of communication, a review had been undertaken of the relevant Council policies to ensure that they remained fit for purpose. The report advised of proposed updates to those policies and related procedures.

The Finance and Governance Group (FaGG) had discussed the policy and had agreed that this policy should be incorporated into the Officers Code of Conduct (Part 13 Codes and Protocols) of the Constitution. This would then ensure that the policy was refreshed annually as part of the group’s cyclical review of the Constitution. Cognisance could then be taken of the changes in this ever evolving area. It would also give the Council greater powers to deal with any issues should they arise and would provide employees with greater clarity about what was and was not acceptable.

Sarah Clarke explained that Councillor Graham Bridgman had raised a few stylistic and formatting issues which would be amended prior to the item being considered at Full Council.

Councillor Jeff Beck noted that Section 3 (Gifts and Hospitality General) did not include a monetary threshold similar to the £25 threshold for gifts included in the Members’ Code of Conduct. Ms Clarke noted this and explained that this was something that FaGG would consider in due course.

In response to a query as to how this would impact on Members, it was explained that Members were not employees and that they would be required to abide by the Members’ Code of Conduct and the Social Media Protocol for Councillors.

 

Councillor Beck stated that the word ‘by’ should be inserted between the words ‘banked’ and ‘them’ in paragraph 18.1.

 

Councillor Steve Ardagh-Walter queried if other examples of good practice had been looked at during the preparation of this document. The Head of Legal Services explained that Councils differed from private organisations due to the political nature of the organisation. Some officers were employed in politically restricted posts. The document was largely prepared by HR and they had looked at other applicable organisations as well as relevant case law. It was hoped that the document explicitly set out what officers could do and how they should conduct themselves. She reminded Members that this Code was not applicable to them. Councillor Ardagh-Walter commented that it was encouraging to hear that other organisations had been consulted.

 

Councillor Dillon noted the comments around employees connecting with service users in paragraph 13.5 and queried what would happen about existing relationships. Ms Clarke noted that employees in the public sector had to maintain high standards of behaviour and that as such they should review these relationships on an ongoing basis to ensure they were appropriate to ensure that their impartiality was not questioned. Where service users preferred method of communication was via social media the policy allowed for permission being sought from the employee’s manager to communicate in that way.

 

Councillor Dillon noted that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 26.

27.

Internal Audit - Interim Report 2017-18 (GE3258) pdf icon PDF 107 KB

Purpose: To update the Committee on the outcome of internal audit work carried out during the first half of 2017-18.

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Julie Gilhespey introduced the Internal Audit – Interim Report 2017-18, which provided the annual half yearly update to the Committee on the outcome of internal audit work carried out during the first half of 2017-18.

She noted that two of the eight or nine audits that had completed had been rated as very weak and a third audit was rated as weak. This was an unusually high proportion and was probably due to the fact that the audits had been conducted on areas where weaknesses had already been identified.

Property Database (Very Weak)

The audit had highlighted that there was a difference between how the system was being used and how it was intended to be used. The audit had highlighted that the service continued to rely on spreadsheets to hold their key information.

The project was implemented using the Council’s Project Management Methodology and the project had been broken down into two phases. Phase one had been signed off as having been completed despite the fact that it had not been fully implemented across the whole Property Service. Concerns were raised about the level of challenge by the project sponsor and the I.T. Programme Board.

There was no closure report prepared for Phase two of the project. The system was not being used to record the data it was supposed to capture. Ms Gilhespey drew the Committee’s attention to the Head of Finance and Property’s comments as set out on page 37 of the paperwork. It was noted that a dedicated resource had been allocated to progress the recommended actions of the audit. Unfortunately the post was currently vacant and was in the process of being recruited to. (Post meeting note: XXXXX to be inserted).

Audit was comfortable with the progress update that was provided  but if the follow up was rated as unsatisfactory the Head of Finance and Property would be invited to attend a future Governance and Ethics meeting to provide Members with an explanation as to why that was the case and what was being done to remedy the situation.

Asset Management Strategy (Very Weak)

The Chief Executive had asked audit to look into this issue as some concerns had been raised. While a Strategy was compiled annually it was very brief and did not comply with Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors’ standards. The document therefore did not comply with professional requirements, there was no performance framework in place and the asset reviews did not set out utilisation/ running and maintenance costs of the Council’s building assets.

The revised Asset Management Strategy would be included in the paperwork for the March Council meeting. Audit were satisfied with the progress update provided but if the follow up was rated as unsatisfactory the Head of Finance and Property would be invited to attend a future Governance and Ethics meeting to provide Members with an explanation as to why that was the case and what was being done to remedy the situation.

Home to School Transport. (Weak)  ...  view the full minutes text for item 27.

28.

Discussion on Response to Consultations

Purpose: To discuss how the Council deals with responding to consultations and how responses are reported back.

Minutes:

Councillor Lee Dillon stated that the Council was regularly consulted by a number of organisations including government departments. The process for responding to these consultations varied depending on the type of consultation and the service area responding. Members, especially backbenchers and the opposition, had limited visibility of these responses and he felt that it would be useful for the responses to be collated and stored in a central location.

 

Councillor James Cole stated that he would support the introduction of a central database provided that individual services were responsible for inputting their own data as there were not sufficient resources in Strategic Support to support this work.

 

A discussion took place on where the authority to respond on the Council’s behalf derived from. Sarah Clarke noted that the revised Scheme of Delegation included a general delegation to each customer facing service area to undertake all the day to day functions necessary for that service area to fulfil its statutory duties and obligations. This would include responding to consultations. In practice it was suggested that these responses were often agreed in consultation with the Portfolio Holder or by a relevant task group or meeting.

 

Councillor Dillon stated that he was concerned that there was no agreed process in place for dealing with consultations, that a corporate view was given potentially without Member involvement and there was no visibility and therefore no associated right to challenge or ability to influence.

 

Councillor Steve Ardagh Walter commented that many consultation responses required a degree of professional or technical knowledge which Members might not have. Councillor Anthony Pick commented that as the Portfolio Holder was responsible for policy it was appropriate for them to be consulted in drafting a response.

 

RESOLVED that:

1.    The issue would be discussed at the next Finance and Governance Group meeting;

2.    The proposal would be to set up a centrally held database which services would populate themselves;

3.    The discussion to include the process for agreeing consultation responses and any issues associated with how long the information would be retained and who would be responsible for managing it.