Agenda and minutes

Any substitute members should declare their substitution.

Councillor Julian Shinn substituted for Councillor Gabe Crisp

Councillor Jon Roser substituted for Councillor Rita Garner

Members and officers must declare any disclosable pecuniary interests in relation to any business on the agenda.  Declarations should also be made at any stage such an interest becomes apparent during the meeting. 

If in doubt, contact the Legal or Democratic Services representative for this meeting.

Cllr Whight declared he was a Policy Advisor to the Cabinet Member for Resources, should that be seen as relevant to any of the agenda items.

To approve the minutes of the Joint Governance Committee meeting held on 31 May 2022, copies of which have been previously circulated.

The minutes of the Joint Governance Committee meeting held on 31 May 2022 were agreed as a correct record.

To receive any questions from members of the public.

In order for the Committee to provide the fullest answer, questions from the public should be submitted by noon on Tuesday 26 July 2022.

Where relevant notice of a question has not been given, the person presiding may either choose to give a response at the meeting or respond by undertaking to provide a written response within three working days.

Questions should be submitted to Democratic Services,

democratic.services@adur-worthing.gov.uk    

(Note: Public Question Time will operate for a maximum of 30 minutes.)

No questions from the public were received.

To consider any items the Chairman of the meeting considers to be urgent.

There were no urgent items raised.

To consider a report by the Acting Head of Internal Audit, copy attached as item 6.

Before the Committee was a report from the Acting Head of Internal Audit, copies of which had been circulated to all Members and copies are attached to the signed copy of these Minutes as Item 6.

The Acting Head of Internal Audit delivered the quarter’s progress update to the Committee, of the Internal Audit Section’s performance against the Annual Internal Audit Plan as well as a summary of work carried out in the period.

It was noted that the audit had looked at four areas, these were cyber security; general data and protection regulations; disaster recovery and cloud computing. Three more areas were to be looked at in the future which were device management; application development and digital strategy.

The Chief Financial Officer informed the committee that a dedicated Information Security Manager was currently being recruited.

Members had questions for the Acting Head of Internal Audit on several areas including -

·         Investigation into the security issues of remote working

·         Training for cyber safety whilst remote working

·         The cancelling of the Theatre’s procurement and contract management

·         The GDPR policy and holding data

·         The Councils Assurance policy requirements

·         Commissioning audit work on other aspects

·         Benchmarking against other councils

·         Risk management and identifying risk

Members proposed the following motion -

This Committee is concerned with the GDPR compliance around risk and data protection and training as well as disaster recovery protocols. Therefore we would like to invite the Director for Digital, Sustainability and Resources to present to us, at the next JGC committee meeting, his strategy for overcoming these concerns.

The motion was seconded and voted in favour of unanimously.

Members discussed the need for a review of the risk management system. Officers agreed to review operational risk and return to the next meeting with some proposals for the Committee to consider.

Resolved

That the Joint Governance Committee noted the progress against the 2021-22 and

2022-23 Internal Audit Plans and implementation of Internal Audit recommendations.

To consider a report by the Director for Digital, Sustainability & Resources, copy attached as item 7.

The Group Accountant for Strategic Finance presented a report to the Committee  from the Director for Digital and Resources, copies of which had been circulated to all Members and copies are attached to the signed copy of these Minutes as Item 7.

There were no questions from members and the item was not debated.

Resolved

The Joint Governance Committee

1.    Noted the annual report and to refer any comments or suggestions to the next meeting of the Joint Strategic Committee on 11th October 2022; and

2.    Noted the annual treasury management report for 2021/22.

To consider a report by the Monitoring Officer, copy attached as item 8.  

The Interim Monitoring Officer delivered his report explaining that its purpose was to inform Members of best practice for the Councils’ audit function. He clarified that the government planned to legislate that all councils would be required to have an Audit Committee and that it should be titled as such. Our current Governance Committee already performed the necessary auditing functions and so the report suggested that the word ‘Audit’ was included in its title.

Members queried whether or not we should have a separate Audit Committee and there was concern that Governance agendas may become too long in future meetings. It was discussed that if lengthy agendas became an unmanageable reality in the future then the committee would revisit this issue.

Officers explained that the future legislation would also prescribe that the committee include at least one independent person. This committee already had two appointed independent persons and the report recommended that these two people continue in their roles.

Members specified that in 4.6 of this report it stated that the committee should receive the Annual Risk Report. Members proposed expanding the terms of reference to include that they should not only receive the report but examine, test and scrutinise it.

This proposal was seconded and voted for unanimously.

The Committee considered the reports recommendations which were proposed, seconded and unanimously supported.

Resolved

The Joint Governance Committee:

·         Recommended to each Council the change of the name of the Councils’ Joint Governance Committee to the Joint Audit and Governance Committee

·         Recommended to each Council the appointment of two Independent co-opted Persons to the Committee to assist with the Councils’ with the audit function.

·         Agreed to add to the Joint Committee’s terms of reference a requirement to report on audit matters to both Adur and Worthing Full Councils on an annual basis in line with best practice guidance

·         Agreed to prepare and submit an annual report to both full Councils reporting on the internal and external audit activities in the previous fiscal year.

·         Authorised the Monitoring Officer to make the required appointments and any necessary changes to the constitutions arising from this Report.

To consider a report by the Interim Director for Communities, copy attached as item 9.

Before the Committee was a report from the Interim Director for Communities, copies of which had been circulated to all Members and copies are attached to the signed copy of these Minutes as Item 9.

The Monitoring Officer delivered the report asking the Committee to consider  establishing a special meeting of the Council to confer the title of Honorary Alderman of the Borough of Worthing, on former Mayors Sean McDonald and Robert Smytherman, who were no longer members of the Council.

The recommendations within the report were proposed, seconded and supported following a vote (For 5, Against 0, Abstentions 0) .

Resolved

The Joint Governance Committee -

·         Approved the granting of the Honorary Aldermanship of the Borough of Worthing to former Mayors Sean McDonlad and Robert Smytherman.

·         Recommended to Worthing Borough Council that a special meeting of the Council be arranged under section 249(1) of the Local Government Act for the specific purpose of conferring the title of ‘Honorary Alderman’ to Sean McDonald and Robert Smytherman.