There were no apologies for absence given at the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest given at the meeting.

The Minutes of the meeting held on 7th October 2024 were confirmed.

There were no matters arising from the above Minutes.

The Executive Director - Resources reported that an additional meeting would be required and this had been scheduled for 24^th February 2025.

The Monitoring Officer advised that a report would be submitted to propose a co-opted member.

The Committee received and considered the report from the Executive Director
- Resources who presented for approval the draft Statement of Accounts for 2022/23 and provided the committee with an update on the progress to meet the Governments backstop date for the draft 2023/24 outstanding Statement of Accounts.

To meet the backstop date of 13 December for the 2021/22 and 2022/23 accounts, EY (as the external auditors) need to have completed their respective tasks in order to be able to complete their report to issue a modified opinion on the accounts for the two financial years. EY will provide a verbal update on the report to the meeting however due to the tight timescales delegated authority is being requested to be given to the Chair of the Audit, Risk and Standards Committee and the S151 Officer to approve the final accounts for both 2021/22 and 2022/23 by the deadline.

The External Audit report will be circulated to Members of the Committee ahead of the sign off and enacting the delegation.

Work is currently underway for the 2023/24 accounts and in preparedness for the backstop date of 28 February 2025, it may be necessary to schedule an additional committee meeting in February to facilitate this work.

There were no questions from Members. RESOLVED:-

That Committee:

1) consider and approve the draft unaudited statement of accounts for 2022/23.

2) delegate authority to the Chair of the Audit, Risk and Standards Committee along with the S151 Officer to approve the final Statement of Accounts for 2021/22 and 2022/23 to ensure the accounts for 2021/22 and 2022/23 can be signed off by 13 December 2024.

The Committee received and considered the report from the Corporate Risk Officer.

The Corporate Risk Officer reported that the Corporate Risk Register was last reviewed by the Management Team on 27 November 2024.

The risk matrix showed how the risks identified in the Corporate Risk Register were distributed. There were currently 26 risks included on the Corporate Risk Register. The risks considered to be outside the Councils risk appetite have action plans in place to mitigate or reduce the risk. The risks that fell within the risk appetite or were deemed acceptable risks, have action plans in place to reduce the risk further.

Since presenting the Corporate Risk Register to the Audit and Risk Committee in December 2023 there has been:

Five risks have been removed from the register:

• Breach of the RSH Homes Standard – A failure to successfully deliver the Compliance Improvement Plan
• Failure of RAAC elements within properties
• Change to Cabinet System
• Delivery of the Repairs and Maintenance Service
• Capacity and Resilience of the Control Centre
• BT upgrade network from analogue to digital by in 2027 One risk has been added to the register:
• Sufficient resources and resilience to comply / manage Health and Safety requirements
The risk rating for three risks has increased:

• 14 - Delivery of long term strategic objectives
• 17b - Sufficient resources and resilience to ensure effective contract management
• 25b - Great Yarmouth Services Limited The risk rating for five risks have decreased:
• 2b - Impact of inflation rise
• 4 – Flood and Coastal Management and Coastal Erosion
 
• 7b – Cyber
• 10c - Business Continuity - Rolling Power Outages
• 17a - Sufficient resources and resilience to ensure effective procurement

Councillor Capewell asked whether the Committee could be made aware of changes to the Corporate Risk Register as they occur.

The Executive Director – Resources advised that she could review the mechanism with the Monitoring Officer and that the risks were reviewed on a quarterly basis by the Executive Leadership Team.

RESOLVED:-
That the Committee reviewed the Corporate Risk Register.

The Committee received and considered the report from the Corporate Risk Officer which outlined an update to the Risk Management Framework, following a scheduled review in accordance with best practice.

Councillor Capewell commented that the Council’s framework was good but the methodology could be improved, by adding further information, for example the risk level at which an item should be removed from the Corporate Risk Register, detailing Existing Controls, and adding in review dates and comments as well as more frequent Committee updates. Councillor Capewell outlined how each of these improvements would help the Committee. He also gave examples of other Councils’ Risk Registers which he had researched.

The Corporate Risk Officer advised that the removal of the target score had been an ELT decision, but she could ask for it to be reinstated. She also stated that the Risk Management Framework was designed as an overview and there was more detail behind it to reduce the risk. She also advised that some risks can’t be reduced due to the nature of the risk e.g. flooding and that it was important to make sure that these risks stay on top.

Councillor Capewell commented that there is still a lot of risks that can be managed.
Councillor Wainwright referred to a risk to the Community due to the boat that was currently in the harbour containing fertiliser and commented that it was very quiet regarding the possible risk this posed and asked how this would be dealt with under a Community Risk.

The Corporate Risk Officer advised that the risk could be captured and added to the register if it remained in the harbour.

The Chair commented that it can be difficult to capture a one-off event.

The Head of Internal Audit stated that improvements could be made to the register such as adding further columns to make it a more standard format.

 
The Monitoring Officer advised that she would review the plan with the Corporate Risk Officer.

RESOLVED:-

That Committee approve the revised Risk Management Framework as set out in the report.

The Committee received and considered the report from the Head of Internal Audit.

The Head of Internal Audit reported on the progress made in relation to the delivery of the Annual Audit Plan for 2024/25.

The Head of Internal Audit directed Members to Appendix 1 to this report which showed the progress to date in relation to the implementation of the agreed recommendations. This appendix also reflected the year in which the audit was undertaken and identified between outstanding recommendations that had previously been reported to the Committee and then those that had become outstanding this time round. A total of 52 outstanding recommendations (7 Urgent, 26 Important and 19 Routine) were currently outstanding. A further 22 recommendations are not yet due, one of which has been cancelled and five are in the final report stage.

Since the Internal Audit Plan was approved, one audit ,GY2513 Building Control
,has been cancelled and one audit, GY2521 Digital Strategy, has been deferred for completion in 2025/26 due to ongoing work to revise the strategy.

Quarter 4 audits have been passed over to the Internal Audit Contractor, BDO, for them to commence. 

There were no questions.

RESOLVED:-

That Committee received the progress update report relating to the Internal Audit Plan for 2024/25.

Teresa Sharman reported on the results of the self-assessment exercise completed by Members on 7th October 2024 and the resulting action plan.

There is a risk that the Audit and Risk Committee may not fulfil its role and purpose because an evaluation of itself is not undertaken, and improvements not considered.

Completion of a self-assessment provides feedback on the effectiveness of the current arrangements and ensures that best practice is followed by the Audit and Risk Committee, and good corporate governance is achieved. Teresa then outlined areas for improvement.

Councillor Carpenter commented that this was a very useful exercise and would lead to a more effective committee. He also suggested that it would be good to have a review in nine months to ensure that the action plan was being adhered to.

Councillor Capewell commented that it would be a good idea for an update on each action plan to be given.

RESOLVED:-

1. That Members noted the final scores for the completed ‘Self-assessment of good practice’ attached at Appendix 1.

2. That Members reviewed the action plan in Appendix 2 and consider whether all improvement actions had been captured.

A presentation was given to the Committee by Andrew Paylor (EY).

 
Andrew Paylor gave a brief overview of the report and outlined the different sections including work completed, results and findings, and value for money reporting.

AP advised that work relating to the Market Redevelopment had gone over budget indicating a risk of significant weakness in contract management. Other weaknesses included the Council’s arrangements relating to non-publication of accounts and finance team capacity during 2021/22 and 2022/23 as well as the arrangements for breach of Home Standard and the Council’s joint venture company.

The Executive Director – Resources advised that the report had been discussed She advised that over the past 12 -18 months there has been turnover in the finance team and recruitments had been made to strengthen the team. Areas such as Capital and HRA have been strengthened and allow for increased skill set and capacity in these areas. Work is underway to embed processes for collecting and analysing where possible throughout the financial year to reduce the workload at year end/preparation of accounts.
She also advised that pro-active steps had been taken to mitigate the issues identified with the joint venture company and the service had now been brought in-house.

The Chairman reported that there was no other business being of sufficient urgency to warrant consideration at the meeting.