Issue - meetings

That the Annual Governance Statement be approved.

The Democracy and Governance Manager introduced the Annual Governance Statement (AGS).  He provided background information and explained that the preparation of the draft AGS had been coordinated by the corporate governance officer working group who had reported to the Chief Executive, the Monitoring Officer and Section 151 Officer on its work.  The core membership of that working group was detailed in appendix 1 to the report.

The Democracy and Governance Manager advised that pages 130 to 145 of the agenda detailed the AGS part of the Statement of Accounts 2012/13.

Councillor R.B. Jones referred to section 5 on Significant Governance Issues and asked if it should correspond to what was in the former Strategic Assessment of Risks and Challenges (SARC).  He commented on the need for consistency.  The Democracy and Governance Manager explained that the significant governance issues went beyond risk management.  The Chief Executive acknowledged the point made and commented that whilst there was a degree of consistency between the two risk commentaries a fuller ‘match’ would be planned for the 2014 Annual Governance Statement. 

            Councillor W. Mullin proposed that the County Council approve the Annual Governance Statement and this was seconded by Councillor J.B. Attridge.     

RESOLVED:

That the Annual Governance Statement be approved.