Agenda and minutes

To receive any apologies for absence.

Apologies for absence were received from Cllrs Spencer Flower and Andy Todd.

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 24 February 2025.

The minutes of the meeting held on 24 February 2025 were confirmed and signed.

To disclose any pecuniary, other registrable or non-registrable interest as set out in the adopted Code of Conduct.  In making their decision councillors are asked to state the agenda item, the nature of the interest and any action they propose to take as part of their declaration.

If required, further advice should be sought from the Monitoring Officer in advance of the meeting.

No declarations of disclosable pecuniary interests were made at the meeting.

Representatives of town or parish councils and members of the public who live, work, or represent an organisation within the Dorset Council area are welcome to submit either 1 question or 1 statement for each meeting.  You are welcome to attend the meeting in person or via MS Teams to read out your question and to receive the response. If you submit a statement for the committee this will be circulated to all members of the committee in advance of the meeting as a supplement to the agenda and appended to the minutes for the formal record but will not be read out at the meeting. The first 8 questions and the first 8 statements received from members of the public or organisations for each meeting will be accepted on a first come first served basis in accordance with the deadline set out below.

All submissions must be emailed in full to [email protected] by 8.30 am on 9^th April 2025.

When submitting your question or statement please note that:

· You can submit 1 question or 1 statement.

· A question may include a short pre-amble to set the context.

· It must be a single question and any sub-divided questions will not be permitted.

· Each question will consist of no more than 450 words, and you will be given up to 3 minutes to present your question.

· When submitting a question please indicate who the question is for (e.g., the name of the committee or Portfolio Holder)

· Include your name, address, and contact details.  Only your name will be published but we may need your other details to contact you about your question or statement in advance of the meeting.

· Questions and statements received in line with the council’s rules for public participation will be published as a supplement to the agenda.

· All questions, statements and responses will be published in full within the minutes of the meeting. 

There was no public participation.

To note the minutes of the Audit & Governance Hearing Sub-committee (if any meetings have been held).

No meetings held.

To receive a report by Chris Swain, Risk Reporting Officer.

The Risk Management and Reporting Officer introduced the report. He covered some points following the observations from one of the Co-Opted Members. The risk dashboard had been updated to reflect the use of almost certain as per likelihood scoring methodology. He referenced 1.3 of the report and provided context on strategic risks. These would enter the quarterly reporting cycle and complementing the existing suite of data provided to senior leaders. He covered sections 1.4 and 1.5 of the report.

Simon Roach clarified paragraph 1.4 on the risk appetite statement and asked how it translated to practical application.

In response, the Risk Management and Reporting Officer explained that the matrix in appendix B was about the high-level steer that would develop a high-level strategic statement for the organisation. A template was being worked on to operationalise the business areas.

Noted.

To receive a report by Angie Hooper, Principal Auditor for SWAP.

The Principal Auditor for SWAP introduced the report. The report was shortened and did not contain the audit rolling opinion because of the information that would be contained in the Annual Opinion Report which will be presented to the Committee in June. One Limited Assurance Opinion had been issued since the last report. There were 7 overdue actions and another 28 actions with revised implementation dates.

Cllr Suttle commented that for the limited assurance opinions, there was not a robust enough mechanism to follow them through and to explain what has happened and when it was going to happen. He had discussed with SWAP a slight change to the current process whereby, when limited opinions were reported, SWAP would recommend a timescale of 3,6, or 9 months where responsible officers would provide a report to the Committee on actions to date. Members agreed that this was a good way forward for ensuring that services were taking appropriate action within agreed timescales.

The Director for Legal and Democratic responded that it was good to get priority comments back to committee for greater visibility and this change would help to ensure that the appropriate officer was in attendance at the committee.

Noted. 

To receive a report by Sally White, Assistant Director for SWAP.

The Assistant Director for SWAP introduced the report. The purpose of the paper was to set out SWAP’s approach to internal audit planning for 2025-26. There were no proposed changes to the way in which audit work was planned. The Charter document was brought to the Committee in October last year but needed to come to the Committee for approval at the first Committee meeting of the first financial year. The document sets out roles and responsibilities of SWAP as Internal Auditors and the Audit Committee. There had been greater clarification on how the standards on Internal Auditing would be applied to the public sector and the changes were limited to that. 

Proposed by Cllr Haynes, seconded by Cllr Bell.

Decision: To Approve the Internal Audit Charter

Reason for Decision

Delivery of an internal audit programme of work that provides sufficient and appropriate coverage of key risks, will enable us to satisfy our requirement to provide a well-informed and comprehensive year-end annual internal audit opinion. Annually, or as a change requires, we provide you with our Internal Audit Charter, for your approval, that reflects the role and responsibilities of us as internal auditors within your organisation.

To receive an update by Jonathan Mair, Director Legal and Democratic.

The Director Legal and Democratic made the Committee aware of the updates on the changes that had been made to the Constitution. A new version of the Constitution had been published last week. Article 8 of the Constitution had been amended to reflect changes to the composition of the Staffing Committee when dealing with the appointment of the Chief Executive and Head of Paid Service. There had also been changes to the arrangements when dealing with code of conduct complaints against Councillors which had previously been approved by Full Council. Changes had been made to Article 11 dealing with the local pension board which were very minor changes to the terms of reference of the pension board. There had been updates to the scheme of allowances to reflect inflationary changes. Council procedure rules had been changed, 9.5A that deals with public questions for Council meetings.

Cllr Suttle requested for future updates to be in a report paper which summarises all the constitution changes.

To receive an update by Aidan Dunn, Executive Director Corporate Development.

The Executive Director Corporate Development updated the Committee on Our Future Council Work. He summarised that the aim for Our Future Council was to reduce duplication, improve the customer experience, make better use of technology and doing all of this should make the Council more financially sustainable. This would be done by consolidating and bringing all staff together, plan and resource changes at a Council wide level, looking to reduce duplication and head count and reduce spend on commission services. Overall, the program is on track and a significant part of it is the enterprise resource planning system and procurement is underway.

To consider the work programme for the Committee.

Bring a paper on Our Future Council Governance and Risk to understand how the governance and risk is organised and managed.  

To consider any items of business which the Chairman has had prior notification and considers to be urgent pursuant to section 100B (4) b) of the Local Government Act 1972. The reason for the urgency shall be recorded in the minutes.

There are no urgent items.

There is no exempt business.

There was no exempt business.