 Good morning, Members, Officers, and any Members of the Public who are viewing the live stream of this meeting. Welcome to this meeting of the Audit and Corporate Governance Committee. My name is Councillor Michael Atkins and I'm the chair of this committee. Sitting next to my vice-chair một cwyddoedd cwyddoedd y Moedd ddatgani, Councillor Peter Sanford, and I'll introduce other attendees when I invite them to speak. Those in the chamber are reminded that the meeting is being live-streamed, if I can ask those joining remotely to ensure that their camera and microphone remain off unless they are addressing the committee. y cyfragell gyraedd cwestiynau'r cyfynghwyl wedi eich cyfrolygiadol yn ei ddefnyddio'n gwahanol a harvestai. Felly, mae'n gyd, gyda'r sefydliadau o gyllid hyn sywn, Patrick. Cymru gyda'n fy mhreidio'r cefnodd maen nhw i mi i'n nhw i dda y bydd, ym Gweithrecyn Cyffredinol i amgylchedd eu cyfragell. Ym Gweithrecyn Cyffredinol i amgylchedd i fy mhreidio'r cyffredinol, gan amglygu'r cyffredinol. Thank you. At that place, on record, my thanks – and I'm sure the committee's thanks – to Councillor Howell for his work on the committee over this term, and I know he's served on it for many years in many different roles. And we're very grateful for his contributions. Item 2 is declarations of interest. Do any members have any interests to declare in relation to any item of business on this agenda? If an interest becomes apparent later in the meeting, you can also raise it at that point. Councillor Sanford and then Thank you, Chair. Just my usual interest as a non-rimunerated director of South County's Limited trading at Birnbeil Street Housing. Thank you, Councillor Sandford. Councillor Stowart. Thank you, Chair. I'm not sure if it actually comes up in the agenda, but just to make absolutely sure I'm a board member of the two respective ffawr, o'r bobl hefyd, o'r bobl hefyd, o'r bobl hefyd, o'r bobl hefyd, o'r bobl hefyd. Yn amlwg hwnnw'n hanfyddo, Cymru Helo Williams. Yn o'r bobl hefyd, ond wedi bod yn oed yn oed y bobl hefyd, mae'n gweithio ar eich fflaenig i'r ysgol. O'r bobl hefyd Williams. Ydwch chi'n gydag 3 ym mhwy o'r gweithio a'r byw i'r gweithio a'r byw ymgyrch Rwy'n credu i adroddech chi, rwy'n gwir Caitreth Nifer, yr yng Nghymru flynyddio'n fathion neu ran ydw i wneud y Cymru a'r 30 Gerach mynd i gael. Rwy'n credu fi ar hyn o'r hyn Rydym ac mae'n rhaid yn gweithio cydMr. Rwy'n credu. Dwi'n credu. Yn wych am 4 yw ddechrau'r ein bod yn gwneud anghylch yn gwneud ond yr ydyddai'n uchydig au'w rideul. Yn ymateb yw'r 1 yw jod yna'r 5 yw i'r 5. is an update for the committee on the position of the 2022-23 accounts and future audits, which joined by Mr Maddock, Head of Finance, could you please present this report? Thank you. Thank you. So, there's just a brief report on where we are with the accounts at the moment. We're in the process of completing the draft set at the 2022-23. We're pretty rydyn ni'n gwybod ymddangos i'r cyflwyno ar y dyfodol, ac rydyn ni'n gwybod y ddechrau yn y 31 ym Mhach 2024. Mae'r ddaf yn ddangos i'r parod o public yn cyfnod. Mae'r ddangos ymddangos sy'n golygu ydych chi'n creu'r ddangos iawn, ac mae'n creu'r ddangos iawn i'r ddangos iawn. Mae'n creu'r ddangos iawn i'r ddangos iawn. I leave a comment in the report that there are a significant number of authorities that aren't up-to-date with their accounts, but I think we know that really. We have been liais in closely with EY, they have now confirmed that they will be continuing with their value for money work on 21, 22, and 23, and they will be providing comments on that, but what gyda'r perthynau gweld yma'r cyfrifol i gyntafol i'r perthynau sy'n mynd i gael. Dwi'n cael ei wneud bod yn teimlo'r cyfrifol ar gŷ, a'r cyfrifol i gŷ, i gŷ, i gŷ, i gŷ, i gŷ i'r cyfrifol i gŷ. Yn ymwneud hynny'r cyfrifol i gŷ, ond hefyd, mae'n gwybod cyfrifolol i gŷ. I suspect it's really been forced upon central government to do something about the system because it got into such a state that something drastic had to be done and this is basically the drastic approaches that they set a backstop date of the 30th of September 2024 for all outstanding accounts up to and including the 30th of March 2023. So we will potentially have a disclaimer on our accounts which basically means that the auditors can't give an opinion because they've done no work. I think the important thing will be is that all the disclaimers that are issued are consistent with each other and make it clear the reason for that disclaimer and I'm assured that that will be the case when this all comes around. So I had a meeting with KPMG towards the end of last week to try and get a bit more clarity about what they're going to be doing for the 23-24 accounts. So they are intending to do a full audit on the 23-24 transactions but they are saying they won't be doing an audit of the opening balances. So potentially for 23-24 accounts we will, whilst we'll have that full audit on the transactions in the year, there will need to be some form of wording within the opinion that says that they haven't done anything on the 22-23 opening balances. Again it's unclear exactly what sort of form of wording that will be but again I think it's the same situation that most authorities are going to find themselves in simply because there just isn't enough time to catch up with the outstanding years and also make sure they do 23-24 on time. The backstop date for 23-24 was going to be 31 March, it's actually been shifted to the 31st of May but I've agreed with KPMG that they will complete the 23-24 audit by the 31st of March 2025 because we would then run the risk of it affecting the 24-25 accounts closure process. Having spoken to them at length I think we're fairly satisfied that that is enough time to complete the work that they need to do. They're starting their audit from the first week of November, I think I reported it was going to be October but they confirmed that that would now be the first week of November and I know we've got Christmas in December but they've effectively got five months in which to complete the audit which should really be enough. So that's sort of where we are, I know we said in the minutes I would be producing a timeline, I think I've probably got enough information now to produce a timeline so I will. So that's where we are, I mean the only other thing that they said that I thought was quite interesting was that they're not expecting the legislation to be passed until June which is not again, seems a very long time but at least we'll have some clarity and we do all know what's going to happen so it's not as if we just sit on our hands, we can prepare for that and prepare for the backstop date of 30th September which I don't believe will have any issue with me. So if there's any questions on that at this point? Thank you Mr Maddock, we might split this up a little because there was quite a lot of detail there covering, no no it's really helpful. So I guess perhaps if we take any comments and questions first of all on the the sort of outstanding quote unquote sort of late audits of 21, 22 and 22 and 23 and then later let's move the discussion on to the forthcoming audit of 23, 24 with KPMG. So are there any questions about the outstanding two years and the processes we are following? I'll take Councillor Williams and then Councillor Leary. Thank you, not so much for a question or a comment. I think the reason or part of the reason why we are in the situation we are with those is because EY have repetitively failed to give appropriate resource and the resource that was needed and we've seen lots of delays not through the council, I mean don't go wrong everyone has a plan to play but the fact that they didn't have enough resources over for example the summer that said to delays and I have sat on this committee now since 2018 and I cannot, I'd be very rich if I had money for every time they said we haven't got the resources or we're having to delay and so I do hold them at least partially responsible for why our residents aren't getting an audit for these accounts and I hope that when it goes forward at the end of the day EY are going to be bidding and I would strongly suggest that this council points out our experience of EY and formalises our experience of EY so that those that are doing the tender process know exactly what you get if you give a contract to EY. Thank you for that councillor Williams, councillor Leeming. Thank you chair and I would like to ask whether in why we'll be bidding us for the non-audits. Excellent question Mr Medic. So I have had a discussion with them about this because I made this point some time ago they will be bidding us based on the work that they've done that's what they've said to me they're all they've done is really the value for money work which they haven't completed so I would expect a substantially reduced bill for both now we haven't had that in writing but I think perhaps I'll request something in writing from them around exactly what work they've done and how my resources in for those two years are there. Thank you and perhaps it would be helpful as well to speak to other district and local councils that are in a similar position on what their auditors are charging for their value for money work only and we can make sure that we are in a reasonable place in terms of the fee that they charge us. I wonder whether there will be guidance issued on this matter and do you say it was July that the government is going to be issuing this legislation. So we're expecting it in June I have received some feedback in relation to the cost of providing a disclaimer so I do think it's something I'll probably need to pick up with EY because they'd suggested in a public meeting at another authority that providing a disclaimer wasn't straightforward and that there was an amount of time involved in providing that. Now I'm not really sure about that if I'm honest so I think I probably need to as part of the discussion I'll probably need to find out well okay if you're providing a disclaimer what exactly is involved so um I think there is a a little bit of concern there that there'll be. I think it's a standard wording that's going to be issued to multiple public bodies I'm not sure how much work there would be involved in drawing that up and um I tend to agree so I think that's something I need to pick up with them to find out exactly what actual work is involved. Thank you. Councillor Sanford. Thank you chair. Just to clarify the last point of expecting the disclaimer to come from EY or from central government and if the latter should be noted as a possible risk if there's a general election in the meantime that the work may get pushed back. So the disclaimer will need to be issued by EY and I'm expecting the sort of general form of the disclaimer so um yeah so it'll be something that I'm hoping based on well from central government that will be the same for each authority. Just to build on that point presumably there are still some risks associated with this well this gap now between now and the legislation being laid in in june um but I guess at the same time it's a sector wide rather than a specific issue is that a fair assessment? Yeah so with anything like it there's always a risk that when the legislation gets assuming um to me you know if something drastic did change then I think the whole catch-up programme is probably out of the window if we have to wait till june so I think everybody in the sector is assuming that it's going to turn out as has been proposed um it seems to be at a great confidence. Thank you and that's very helpful can I just clarify the the value for money work for 21 22 and 22 23 will that be two separate reports or will that be one kind of um sort of omnibus report? I believe it's going to be one report that covers both years um again I can check that point but that's my understanding. I mean I think given that a reasonable amount of material would be copied between the two in any case it would that would make sense have um and sorry and you said that they've they've already they're carrying out work on that at the moment have they kind of have they flagged any kind of urgent risks to you as as head of finance that have emerged as a result of that work? They haven't particularly flagged any risks I think um the work is quite drawn out because I think there's um going to be some work around um the four-day week um and the final report that we produced so I'm not expecting the value for money report to come until well obviously the July is the next scheduled meeting so I'm expecting it to be available for that meeting. Thank you. Is there anything else on the outstanding audits before I move on to the the brave new world of 2324 and KPMG? No well I might just kick off this section um is there so you've clarified that KPMG won't be doing any work on the opening balances which on reflection does make sense because that would essentially involve doing two audits you know and and sort of gets us back to sort of where we where we started um but I wonder perhaps something for Mr Tully to to to consider is there any support that internal audit could provide in terms of when we have the finalised uh kind of closing balances as it were for 2223 given that those won't be looked at but that any issues with them could have kind of cascading effect is there a could we commission a sort of any perhaps quite a limited scope of work around kind of key risk areas for internal audit just to kind of have a one say which not in any way to undermine my confidence in Mr Maddox team but you know more eyes are always beneficial I wonder what you think to that suggestion Mr Tully. Thank you chair yeah I can I can see some merit on that I think it's probably worth Peter and I taking that way of having a discussion thinking about what some of those key risks could be and what would be some of the best areas to take assurance on so I'm happy to have that conversation with Peter. Thank you that would be yeah that would be excellent. My only other question on this was just to clarify what our expectations of KPMG so if they've not if they've not got any kind of confidence or can't draw any assurance on the opening balances should we therefore expect kind of qualified opinions for the 23-24 audit which certainly sort of you know reasonable assurance you know but for the opening balances etc etc is that the sort of place we're heading to here? I'm hoping it'll be a little bit better than reasonable assurance I mean to be honest I don't know and I don't say when I was talking to KPMG last week I suppose I suppose it's probably only for one year because the way it sort of works by the time you've ordered those then become the closing balances so it's sort of a one-year sort of stop gap I think again it might be useful for me to get a bit more clarity on that if I can but I'm not sure I can at the moment but in principle they suggested there would need to be some form of wording just to make it clear that I hadn't. Thank you I mean to some extent though I mean they'll have to do quite a bit of work on the closing balances and all the transactions which you do think kind of take one from the other in your back where you started but I appreciate that's not quite the that's not quite the same thing in all cases. Are there any questions about the future work with KPMG in the next round of audits after that? Councillor Lee-Ming. Thank you chair. I would like to ask have they given any idea of the way that they are going to audit how they're going to do this work? They're starting in the first week in November. When will they begin substantive testing? Will their work in November be sort of risk-focused and scoping? Have they given any indication about whether they will come and actually visitors here in South Wales? So they have said that they will come into the office and they said they will have some time at the start of the audit. They seem fairly flexible around visiting the offices and they certainly share my view that you can clear up clearly a heck of a lot quicker on a face-to-face meeting than sending loads of emails so they're still on the same page with that. Sorry, what's the first question? I was asking about whether they've given you any idea of how they will work. Do they have a sort of risk-focused and then substantive testing focus and how are they going to arrange their time when they start working November? Do you know what their initial work will be and what we should be preparing for? So they have actually already been doing some work. We've provided a lot of information with them with any new order. They're going to be doing some of the walk-throughs. I'm not sure where we've quite got through the walk-through. So the walk-through is a system audit where they follow a trend. So my understanding is that they will have done a lot of that work. They would say they're already doing some of that work. So my expectation is that when they come in November they'll be ready to start the full audit with their sample testing. From the conversations I've had, I think the approach between audit firms is generally similar. I haven't gone into a lot of detail so far about the work, but they're certainly intending to come in on-site first couple of weeks in November, start the sort of getting the samples together, do some of the testing and hopefully we can get them on so if we can, I think that it will be finished by the end of March without too much trouble, I would hope. Thank you. I have one more question, which is to do with it's a thing that has caused problems for us in previous audits, but both areas of the work involve third parties, so our valuation and our pension valuation. What have they asked us to do in regard to those particular areas of the accounts? Because they are things where we've had deliberations and discussions that have helped things up in the past. So it's an interesting one, this, because SIPFA are also consulting on some changes to the accounting code, the two areas they're looking at are. Now there's a lot of time and effort both very subjective, I'm not 100% convinced that the time that's previously been put into from the auditors warrants it if I'm honest. Now it sounds that SIPFA are going to relax some of the requirements, so for example the valuations at the moment we're doing full valuations over the year. I believe from what KPMG was saying last week was that there's an intention to move to perhaps more indexation type valuations which should probably take less time. I think there is a recognition that there's a lot of information in the accounts around pensions and almost disproportionately compared to other parts of the accounts, so I think there's possibly going to be some relaxation about some of that as well, which should reduce the amount of preparation time and the amount of auditing time. Watch this space I think. Is SIPFA going to issue guidance on this over the summer? Will this potentially be in the same piece of legislation that comes with the how to manage the outstanding accounts? So this all because it's the professional accounting body it'll come through a slightly different route, but the intention is for that to be aligned. I must admit I haven't had a chance to have a look at some of the proposals, but this was based on the conversation I had with KPMG and they obviously have had a chance to look. So I think that it sounds like a proportionate response to me from SIPFA, well I'd hope it would be anyway, but it does sound like a proportionate response and hopefully this will aid the process and mean that a few less weeks back to the assets and pensions by the auditors. Thank you. Just to build on that a little, those two areas feel quite different to me in the sense that obviously for valuations we do have investment properties held for value and the value of those is quite important and I can see that in the case of some local authorities, fortunately not ours, issues around misvaluwing or purchasing investment properties at the wrong time have caused serious financial issues at some other councils. So I'm not necessarily opposed to a healthy amount of work. As we all know property valuations here in Cambridge are pretty robust and so it's unlikely to be very unlikely to cause any significant issues for the council, but I think that is an area where I say reflecting on some of the issues with other councils that time spent there is not necessarily wasted, but I have no understanding as to the work spent on the pensions issue particularly as we are not the, you know, we don't manage or hold the investment of the pension fund and that is presumably itself separately audited and checked in any case. So my understanding is very much that we more or less get a phone call that says you know the value of your pension liability is this and here's the information you need to put in your accounts and that's sort of sort of handed to us and that's and that's sort of the beginning and the end of the story. So I think that those would be my reflections I guess on those on those two issues but we can pick those up with KPMG when they begin their work. Are there any other comments on the future audits and our work with KPMG? No, well thank you very much. We've been asked to note that report. Thank you very much for your contributions and thank you Mr Maddock. Agenda item six is updates the committee on topical news items around corporate governance risk and some of the assurance work that's been going on. Could I please invite Mr Tully to present this report? Thank you. Thank you chair and good morning members of the committee. This is our regular quarterly update on typical governance risk and control matters in the council with content both from myself and from Peter's team. It feels like quite a comprehensive report I think this quarter. Hope you find it useful as ever. We're starting on page 13 of your agenda packs. Just to talk about some of the key highlights in the report. First of all from the internal audit side we've completed two reviews in the most recent period. Safeguarding, modern slavery which had fuel assurance and also procurement declarations of interest which had reasonable assurance. National fraud initiative, we recently extracted and processed data for the annual national fraud initiative exercise. That review does provide assurance that the data quality is good on our systems and that's also been used for the countywide fraud initiative which we refer to later on in the reports where there's been some very good performance indeed about recovery. On page 18 one thing I do want to bring to attention is just the new global internal audit standards have been published at the beginning of the year in January. We're maintaining our compliance with the existing standards whilst these ones are being implemented globally. So it's important you know we make sure in the team we continue our continuous professional developments and continue to implement improvements. I think what we need to do is try and understand what the most sensible route is for assessment and compliance with the new standards. We've already started preparing for that but there are still some unknowns. One other thing for us at this stage we don't know if they're going to be supplementary public sector standards. We had those last time. General feeling is there won't be but we're still waiting for some things to be finalised. So we're staying on top of that and we'll keep you updated with progress. Further on this committee the independent member is a report we've brought to you previously following the most recent Civic Affairs meeting. We've been progressing to that recruitment and we've got a whole recruitment pack set up good to go. Peter's the recruiting manager and I'm working with him on that. Hopefully an advert will be going live soon. We've put a little timeline in the pack just so you can see where we are. We're hoping to get someone who's lucky and post for the new municipal year. Moving on from that we go into the report where we have a section of sort of counter fraud highlights and updates. Some of the highlights there we've got there is just to be aware of some of the comms we've got on fraud awareness. Very good that's been promoted and hopefully you've seen that on the websites. We've also included some good examples of fraud preventative work. Obviously we can be preventative and stop happening in the first place that's the best place to be. So it's useful to demonstrate how it's been an increase in that work I think. The council tax counter fraud initiative I mentioned that earlier on as we've used the NFI dates for that. It's been some very positive results with savings in the region of 477,000 so that's very positive. And then finally what we always like to do for the committee is include updates, training development for your awareness and we've got three items there. One on treasury management, one on sector risk and one on off-log. So I hope you find that a useful update. If you've got any comments questions you have to take those. Thank you Mr Tully a very comprehensive report. Questions and comments please. Councillor Williams. Thank you. You mentioned there in your introduction and it's in the report about savings in relation to fraud. Now I fully support the efforts made to tackle fraud but I think really it should be money's retrieved because it's not they're not savings this is money that should never have gone into those people's hands. They have defrauded the council so it's not a saving it's money retrieved back that should never have left us or who they are. And I just think if we say savings it sort of sounds like we're doing some budget exercise. We're actually there's a moral responsibility for people not to attempt to defort the taxpayer but equally for us to pursue that. So I think retrieving what is the taxpayers is better than savings in my view because I don't see it as those I see as people that have tried their luck on a lot of occasions and they shouldn't morally they shouldn't. So that was on that. The other thing and I've raised it previously in relation to training and my concerns around for the reduced hours availability to training and also how we are ensuring that people are up to date. You know we employ people on the basis of a certain qualification. How are we ensuring that their CPD is up to date and actually they still have that qualification and we did have a conversation where actually as a council we weren't following that up and we weren't seeing that. We've now had the peer review report that does identify training as a bit of a red flag and an issue. Is there anywhere in the foreseeable future where we could have have this looked into as there have been other things? I realise there's been a surface check but I do think it's something that warrants really the same merit as we do for some of these other things. Thank you Mr Tully and I'll come to Councillor Stoeparton. Thank you. Just on the savings I'd probably agree on that in terms of wording. I'd be happy to review that comment so that's quite simple. Yes and on the other one you know we're already doing some sort of work looking to sort of CPD and training of officers of the council so I take on board your comments there as well. Thank you yes and perhaps as part of that work I mean this may be what you covered previously but I think Councillor Williams was pointing particularly around those with professional qualifications where we're relying on those it should be it could be relatively straightforward to identify the council staff who are who fall in that category which won't I think necessarily be an enormous number but yes I will leave that to your judgment as how best to progress that and I also agree about some slightly stronger language about the recovery of monies that are rightfully publics. Councillor Stoepart please. Chair thank you. So I just wanted to pick up on the point that Councillor Heather Williams made about training and the subsequent discussion and then I've got a few questions about the other items in the report so if I just go through them and then please stop me if it's too much. So on professional qualifications it is important of course that people who are for example pursuing a corporate membership of an institution are offered every encouragement by their employer and so I think you know from my experience including that in the staff appraisal and also I believe the council offers to certain employees financial support for subscriptions but they can be a challenge you know particularly early in Korea and I would sort of encourage that view of professional qualifications that there isn't in a sense an artificial barrier imposed and that managers would be responsive to that need for maybe a training assignment you know that is needed to reach a certain gateway in professional qualifications so I think they're all in a sense they're risk factors you know the quality of the workforce has to be maintained and I think it is a meeting between the individual and their supervisors. So just that was more a comment and I hope a supportive one. On page 18 under continuous improvement of course this is a lot about training and qualifications I did have a detailed question about power query and power BI which kind of pop out and a really good value kind of brief explanation of what they are and their implications just flicking through the the rest of the report just to dwell briefly on the preventative work and I think council Williams already brought that up but you know when we are applying in a sense processing checks on applications for things what do we put in place to ensure that we get very low false positives in other words a very good rate of picking up on fraudulent behaviour at the same time a very low false negative so that you know people who are worthy don't get kind of rejected at the first stage which can be very demoralising and in fact may leave some vulnerable people in there in a bad place so I think that was that's my second question and then the documents you've recommended Mr Tulliw excellent the guide on treasury management talks about something we have touched on in the past which is where the interests of audit and scooting in an overview combine and I would commend it to the rest of the committee to read that report and reflect on it thank you chair thank you councillor say about I also have some comments about power query and power be like but I'll let you answer the rest of councillor say about questions first okay thank you yes so there are two microsoft office products which we have the first one power query is very good data analytics tool which is built into microsoft excel but it's effectively sort of a standalone application and it's a very good way for building queries and especially repetitive queries so if you want to load a dataset into it once and you build up your analysis and query on it you can refresh it and load datasets in again and again and again so that's quite an efficient way of doing it um it's also very good way we've been using it to do data quality checking of the data in the first place it definitely highlights any potential anomalies and things like that so that's the first part of that tool and it's very useful in our toolbox as auditors to get through a lot of data quickly and in some scenarios rather than doing some through base testing it can potentially enable us to do a whole system testing get through a lot of data very very quickly and that improves the level of assurance we can provide so that's why we've been very much investing our training in that area the second one is the power bi now this is more of a sort of graphical illustration tool which can be used to provide charts and all kinds of wonderful tools a way to communicate and illustrate the data that you've got it goes a little bit beyond just using standard charts and tools like microsoft excel and things like that but it is much the same thing where it's been very helpful and where we've used it recently is trying to look at data and how it's been dispersed across a geographical area and you can see patterns and trends by putting sort of addresses in by postcode and it really just helps you look at the data through different lanes perceiving a different way and that provides further insight so again quite another useful tool for us to be skilled up on um so i hope that answers your questions on those two um i'n gweithio through you um that uh yeah doing whole data is great as opposed to sampling and i think things like it enables you to pick up outliers so things that may be indicative of issues in the data and so on anyway i won't go any further than that but commend the approach um i'm happy to progress or come back to your questions on um so the the next question was around identifying false positives false negatives so a good example of this for members of the committee is when we're doing the national fraud initiative we are loading a lot of data into the system and it's doing a lot of matches um the data gets matched according to their protocols and routines and it's sort of the best fit across the whole sort of united kingdom really um when those data matches come back we want them to all be good quality if they're not good quality and it's identifying something that could be wrong but it's not that's what's known as a sort of a false sort of positive because it's shown up as a positive match but there's nothing there to investigate so we want to try and reduce those as as much as possible and false negative being the reverse of that um i think the challenge we've got with those systems is that it is definitely based on national sort of matches and their algorithms best designed to seek that so although it is helpful it's no substitute for our own local intelligence and when we look at the data we'll make our own sort of supplementary risk appraisal based on the information that's provided back to us that to them for you what to add on that from the your sign for yeah just trying to that and sort of relate to this um the fraud team are doing a lot more or are and are going to be doing a lot more on preventative work um we've been uh our fraud managers been engaging the central government around some of the things that are coming from there around assessing fraud risk uh the impact of fraud on systems and making sure all of our council systems are as um fraud proof as they possibly be it can be and I think I think uh it's probably fair to say that central government prices and some of the grants uh processes and there was uh you know quite a bit of feedback around perhaps not as much was put into the fraud side of things I think you know there's a lot coming forward from central government about good practice about making sure that all your systems who is fraud proof as they possibly can uh so we're going to be directing a lot of our work in the next couple of years just to make sure that our systems are as fraud proof as they possibly can can be so um a bit of a watch this space and that that work's already started we've done some work with housing in recent weeks and that that'll continue across the authority over the next couple of years onwards I think it's a brief comment on those two things the national versus the local that's um that's an intriguing and important kind of distinction to make because you know we recognise uh there are peculiarities in our district so um that's going to be a challenge I think for for the future because of course local is maybe better but local is less data and that that means things like if you even think about doing some like machine learning it would be tricky to have a good local um system so um I'm glad you're recognising that but I think there's a there's a challenge inherent challenge in that distinction if you will yes well perhaps one could sort of train train your data on as much national data as you can and then feed it the the local stuff and see what it makes of it I think yeah it's really interesting interesting learning around that um thank you um my my brief comment is just on just on the power query issue um which is something that that I've used quite a lot professionally and I'm certainly welcome it's adoption by the team and I think it's an excellent uh an excellent use of time for sort of training in these tools I guess as your as I'm sure you're aware the the only risk I think with these is that um although most use of Microsoft Excel is somewhat misuse and not used very well and not always the best tool for the job there is a sort of general understanding of how it works and there's a general ability to figure out what's going on at a relatively surface level whereas as you move to these more advanced tools it becomes more necessary to document the steps that are being taken and in a way that can be kind of passed on and you know you don't want to end up with kind of single points of failure where there's one person who built this quite complex sort of you know 30 step kind of query and if it's not the power query does a reasonable job of doing it kind of step by step and working at what happens but even so I think some additional documentation around these models is probably also worth our investment of time so that was my only comment in that uh councillor Lieming thank you thank you chair um I have a question about um the internal audit review of um modern slavery um so in the in the notes thank you it says that um there will be a training presentation which will be rolled out to staff and partner agencies do you have a timescale of when that would be um I'd also like to ask whether um when you undertook this work whether you took any advice from the police and their expertise in this area thank you thank you yes so um the first one about the training the action itself will have a timescale for implementation so I can have to say that I won't get back to you on that one um with the police from the audit side we didn't engage with the police but it is quite possible that the the actual team itself which is leading on modern slavery did engage with them um again I'd have to say that I won't get back to you if I don't have to do that thank you thank you can we sorry just to butt in can we um can we make sure that that training is also made available to members as well as as well as staff thank you sorry councillor councillor Lieming no more questions thank you other than that you know I really recommend I'm very pleased to see this has been been undertaken because it's it I sit on the police and climb board with another hat on and it is an issue that's raised and I'm glad to see that we aren't proactive about this thank you thank you is there anything Mr Terry that we need to know particularly I guess about the medium actions that came out of these two reviews that you completed in the last last quarter uh yes sure I'm happy to talk to those um I think the both medium actions on on these fronts they're not so much about the impact it's more about the timing um so for example on the modern slavery one one thing that we agreed with the teams that will be very good to reflect this on our risk register and that was something we wanted to do sooner rather than later which is that's why it's a medium action not because it's a big impact um in fact we can see that coming up later on the agenda today it's been added to that so it was just really about the timing of trying to to get these implemented as quickly as possible nothing more than that thank you that's helpful clarity um I think final point from this are I've been butting in all over the place um the audit committee independent member um I don't want to delay the process at all but if the advert is in a kind of draft near finish state could it be shared please with members of the committee um maybe just give us a week or so to look at it like I don't want to add an unnecessary delay but I think it would be appropriate for us just to review the advert and check it is also matching our understanding of what of what is happening. Councillor Neumann. Thank you chair um is this something that could get tangled up with a general election the the advertisement of this independent member or is it going to be outside the scope of that? We might take some advice on that my my sense would be it's I can't see why it would be but um always best to get advice as we as we run up and there are obviously elections happening locally in May but we need to even if they're not in our district we do need to have some some awareness of those but yes um if we we've all into the regulated period because the place of crime even though we haven't got their collections so we will be in regulated period yes so yeah let's take some advice as to whether we need to bear that in mind either for May or indeed for a a general election at some point but um yes if we could just have a quick a quick once over of the advert would be would be much appreciated thank you. Were any final comments on this report before I move on? No thank you we've been asked to know to discuss the report and we have done so thank you very much Mr Tully. Agenda item seven is the Six Monthly Strategic Risk Report Mr Bird who joins us online will present this report thank you. Yes thank you chair good morning everyone um this is the Six Monthly Strategic Risk Report it's normally presented by Kevin Ledger but he's unavailable today so he's asked me to step in. As I said we produce this report every six months and it's the strategic risks so it's the risks that are most considered most important to the council as a whole so there is a process in place that escalates risks from services and projects and programs onto this list and this is the list that is owned and managed by our leadership team. What the report shows I won't go through it word for word but what the report shows in paragraph three are the steps that we've taken since it was last brought to this committee in October where we've shared it with our corporate management team our leadership team and we've made the necessary amendments and additions as Mr Tully alluded to earlier. What we've also want to show in this report is on paragraph five a summary of all of those additions and changes that we've made to the risk. Now that the purpose of bringing it to this committee is to show that there is governance and risk management not to specifically interrogate individual risks but what I want you to do is give you a flavour of the type of work that's been going on behind the scenes and show you clear examples of ongoing monitoring and upkeep of this list. Paragraph six will show you how the risk score is calculated so there is a brief summary of that here where we show the impact of each risk and the likelihood of each risk and that gives you an overall risk score and then that's when mitigating factors are considered and the overall score is the residual risk score after the mitigating factors have been taken into account and the risk log at appendix A will show all the risks that we have on the risk register but in the order of the total residual score so you'll get what we consider to be the most important or the most impactful at the top of the list so that that gives you a clear idea of exactly what we consider to be the biggest risks. We take this risk register to LT regularly for them to go through it and obviously as said as part of our ongoing policy and performance work we engage with all service areas, all service plans, all project plans and programs to make sure that any high scoring risks after mitigating factors have been taken into account are then escalated and brought forward onto this particular strategic risk so that we have a clear view of what we consider to be the highest risks in the council. That's it chair. I'm obviously happy to take any questions on the report and if there are questions on specific risks I would ask that you allow me to take those back to the risk owner and get a response for you there. Thank you very much Mr Bird for that overview. Any comments or questions on this? Councillor Williams. Sorry I'll start with on page 36. Now I raised this at full council in relation to the MRF contract and it does say about a sort of reputation impact and potential impact to income and what have you but there doesn't seem to be anything financial as a control measure and at the end of the day unless there's been an update which there may have been since full council your other councils have budgeted I think Huntington was 900 000 for potential increase we haven't budgeted anything and that just doesn't seem to be taken into consideration really as a control measure risk so I think we need more on that to understand how it's got from 16 to 8 because obviously I'd say it's quite high risk to the budget if we end up in the same way as Huntington have budgeted and then when it comes to the risk registers on the four day week we have some we have a risk for actually for the trial to be stopped early or for the return to five-day working to be early and yet we can see from staffing employment reports that actually the risk is the longer it carries on the harder it is to go back so we seem to have conflicting comments between the two committees also something that I've raised before chair is quality of work how do we how do we assess the fact that actually yes targets on applications might be dealt with in time bins collected but actually the pressure that is put on people to do it in less hours means it's a poorer quality of work not because they're not capable of doing high quality work but the intensity that is those working arrangements which we all already know some have opted out from how are we checking that there seems to be no consideration of quality again no risk for reputational issues but surely we can all agree that one way or another reputation of this council is being questioned at national level and yeah I mean why in staffing employment do we have that it's a risk for the trial to continue and yet in the risk register it's a risk if it stopped um I mean you could argue that there's a risk either way but why is one being included and not the other um so I don't feel that the four-day week again training should be in here can't see it I mean it's just the risks attached to the four-day week trial are not being adequately covered in this risk register again thank you council I'm very aware that this is a very politically sensitive topic um I think it's I think it's appropriate for Mr Bird to take your comments away back to the risk owners and consider if they've been fully reflected um I don't quite have a perhaps you could explain your your contrast between what is said and the staffing employment and what is said here is the is the point being made at staffing employment not that if the trial continues there are more risks associated with it then stopping which is and the stopping is the risk that the risk is that they're highlighting and surely that the longer it goes on the greater the potential impact if it then stops have I understood that correctly chair so here we have the risk a risk factor for it being stopped prematurely okay that's the risk that's in this risk register and yes in the report to staffing employment committee it said how there was a a risk for the trial and for four-day working to continue because the longer it goes on the harder it is then to bring people back and yet the risk in the risk register is a risk of stopping it whereas at staffing employment the risk is it continuing so while there might be merits and things on both sides only one has been factored in the risk register and actually I think there is a high risk of the longer it continues the harder it is to harder it is to revert back now people may agree agree or disagree whether that's a risk worth taking and that's a political decision but looking at the risk register itself the absence of that I think is a great concern I understand so it's essentially what you're saying is there are there are risks involved with the trial if the trial is stopped prematurely and or if it is but your point is that if it is stopped at some future point not prematurely so perhaps mr bird you could take away the comment that that that risk around it being stopped prematurely perhaps doesn't cover the full the full range of risks depending on whether it is or is not stopped I agree perhaps a little more detail there would be beneficial um are there any further comments councillor Stobart chair thank you um so first of all a general comment on on the way the risks are presented um it's it's very clear and very helpful um that we can see the risk in you know summarised and its impact and probability and the mitigation steps that are taken I think that makes for a clear reading um I just have um no comments if you will about the parallel process if you will so composing the risk register is an important reasonable step we've talked about the escalation from in the sense department at mental level to a corporate level of risk that's that's most appropriate but um what's what's the life cycle of a risk you've talked about that escalation process but once it's on the strategic risk register is it for example reviewed at scheduled leadership team meetings is that evaluation of risk dealt with on an event basis so there's an event a report published a letter received whatever which in a sense then triggers an evaluation of the risk how does that happen and I just wanted to add one point here a risk register should be dynamic you know and and we should be thinking well some risks are coming off because we've managed them down to the base that you know to a level where they can be handled again at departmental level and and some risks if they persist might for example point to some kind of structural issue at the council that we need to address we need to allocate more resources to handling so um the two questions are what's how are risks considered day to day and secondly how do we in a sense capture and encourage a dynamic approach to risk where risks are moving around they're being managed down and so on I hope that's clear I've rumbled a little bit but um there are my two comments for the moment or questions for the moment. Thank you councillor but councillor Byrd can you say anything about the kind of more about the full life cycle of how of how these risks are moved up and down and on and off the the corporate register? Certainly and that's one of the problems we identified with our old risk system for risk was that um they weren't there wasn't the the agreed lifespan or as you said councillor say about a dynamic approach to risk management um so what we do now is we manage them much more closely we've got specific individuals or a team within the council now that look at risks regularly and monitor them they update and remove risks that are on the risk register as as well as escalations to it so identify new ones. We've introduced a process of direction of travel so that we know if a risk score is increased or decreased from one from the one type from when it's published to the next time it's reviewed or if it's new or if it actually is going to be no longer on that list we show that it's going to be removed at the next one so we do monitor that movement of risks if you like. We've also spent a lot of time in making sure that people are aware that they own their own risks before I think there was a lack of ownership if I may say that and I think certainly around project and program management we've made a big step forward in making sure that project managers and program managers review their risks regularly at project meetings and at program meetings so that there is this dynamic approach and we do make sure that risks are moved around because we don't want there to just be to just go stale if you like and just to sit on a risk register and nobody look at them and I think we've we've made great steps forward we do what one could see this as a disadvantage but at the moment we haven't got a risk management software system in place so we're actually doing this on an Excel spreadsheet by hand which isn't great in many ways and we are looking for improvements in that but what it does give us is it's a real hands-on approach to risk management that we didn't have before so as I said we are looking at them more regularly we've got ownership agreed right from service level through projects programs right up to LT as I mentioned earlier leadership team actually own the strategic risk register and it is on the forward plan regularly for them to review it and as I say we've introduced a direction of travel so that we know whether or not a risk score a residual score has increased decreased whether it's a new or whether it will come off the next publication I hope that answers your questions um yeah through you chair thank you mr word for uh you know the answer that's that's reassuring um what do we continue to need to do though to you know consolidate that view of risk in in the council's working culture that's a very good question um I think ownership of risks has been very important um there wasn't that as I said ownership of risks and I think part of that ownership is that we've uh worked very closely Kevin and I to make sure that risk um the risks of visual and appear on service plans so that previously we've had uh service plans that say we're going to we're going this is what we're going to achieve in the next year or what the steps that we're going to take in the next year and that's been very clear and precise and we've monitored the delivery of a service plan and we've monitored how that impacts on the delivery of the business plan but we've widened the approach of the service planning this year to include risk management also transformation and equalities so it's it's there in black and white and the service manager is responsible for managing that service plan as well as delivering the outcomes um but you know through through you chair it sounds though mr bird you're doing what is reasonable in the circumstance to encourage that kind of evaluation appreciation of risk um I think yeah let's see see how it goes thank you for the report thank you chair I have just one or two more detailed questions on the risks themselves so if I might um and this this might require some homework um so on page 36 um risk sr 11 it was simply you know just glancing down that list I looked at this thing called data maturity self-assessment and I thought what is that um I wondered if um you might get back to us on what a data maturity self-assessment is and you know whether that's got the implication of the committee uh you know might be interested in the outcome of that self-assessment and then just going one down to sr 12 the implementation of the asset management strategy of course is huge because it's amongst other things you know looking at reducing the carbon cost of you know all the council owned homes and presumably touches also on ermine street um so I just wondered if um somewhere we should be digging into that a little in a little more detail because it's because of its significance to the council so um that's a that's a kind of a general question should we be coming back to that um that's chair that's um that's a scrutiny question or just a matter of a report from um Peter Campbell and um I think's Alex Snelling Day on how that's going but uh it just it just lept out of the page as I was reading through yeah thank you I think perhaps that's that's a scrutiny question but if you could take those comments away Mr Bird and the A's with the risk owners that would be that would be much appreciated unless you wish to share with us what a data maturity self-assessment is off the top of your head but you may wish to revert back to us I'll I'll come back to you if I may chair thank you any yeah councillor leaving thank you thank you chair um I've noted that um one of the the new risks which has been added to the paper um is actually a very high one um which is the um SR sorry it's this one it's the SR 32 um the increased need for temporary accommodation bed and breakfast accommodation and I've seen that that's a that's that's been added as a um a new risk and it's and it's high um I wondered whether um one of the risk owners could actually explain a little bit more about what work is underpinning addressing this risk um and I wonder whether it's something that we all need to be more conscious of um because it's it's multiagency and it will it will run through um many areas of the council's work um and it's obviously a significant issue both for the people involved being made homeless and also for us providing accommodation nor the logistical challenges that that one involved thank you are you are you happy to take that away certainly fantastic I think they might mean December 2023 yes perhaps yes it's a good spot uh yeah just check December 2024 data's crept in there it's in a couple of places it's easily done particularly at this time of year any uh any final comments or questions on this risk register thank you so we've been asked to review the register and make any comments or suggestions uh thank you for your input on that members and thank you mr bird for presenting the report uh we come to item eight which is the uh performance report uh for treasury management for the for the third quarter uh I understand mr mandirk will be presenting this report thank you so this is the third quarter report up to the end of december um you'll see to paragraph 17 we have um a table that shows our investments so the top half of the table looks at uh a sort of counterparty investments with the banks building societies etc and the second part looks at our longer term um investments which incidentally haven't changed in the three quarters so far with this financial year um we'll also see that um have off 28th will you see some information on our borrowing you'll see our borrowing has actually gone down since the start of the year so it was at uh 245 million it's now it's 200 or it was 234 million at the end of december um there's a there's also a table showing some of the key budgets and the relate to treasury management and how they're performed and overall it looks like we're going to be over 82 000 underspent or additional income depending on which one you look at um so um a little that's that's positive news um there's also some commentary on our borrowing uh the people we the counter parties we're lending to the counter parties and they're borrowing from um and there's also some sort of macro type commentary which provided by link our treasury advisors um so that's the uh quarterly position as of the end of december thank you mr mattyc any questions or comments on this report councillor the williams uh thank you chair um i'm pleased to see the borrowing going down most people know i'm not keen on keen on debt um it does what and i can understand i can see the interest rates and i can understand that short term is is less than long term so i understand why it's been done but i feel i have to raise my concerns about the whole refinancing of short term for what is essentially long term borrowing and i appreciate why it's being used um but i'm very concerned about at some point we'll get caught out and so i've said it i've said it before i yeah i couldn't sit here and not say it because it's what i believe but i do understand why why it's been done thank you councillor hello williams is there anything you want to understand mr mattyc i mean i see that our short term borrowing as as williams has indicated has has has reduced now to yeah i mean there were two reasons but um we've pursued short term borrowing is it certainly in recent years it's been a lot cheaper than longer term borrowing but also the fact that we our cash flow projections did suggest that we needed some borrowing for a shorter period of time than perhaps so you know our borrowing has gone up and down it's been actually quite volatile over the last couple of years so um i take on more the comments that councillor Williams makes i mean there's always a risk that we might need to borrow a time when rates are higher um it's yeah it's difficult to predict exactly when we're going to need um talking to our treasury advisors um looking at um the cash that we hold um in uh in our opinion it's been best to borrow short um on the basis that um we probably you know we were looking at we didn't need all of that money for the long term anyway um and that's at the time and still currently shorter term rates are slightly better it's not such a big differential as it was there was a period when there was a really if i'm reading these tables correctly then actually is at the end of december our short term borrowing at 29 million was very similar in fact to our short term investments of 27 million so presumably in the event of some kind of short you know sudden sort of short term rate interest rate sort of interest rate shock we could you know seek to wind down both sides of that balance and so reduce our exposure and we yeah and that's the thing we sort of manage both of them in tandem if you know i'm looking at which is the best which is the best option um our investments i think are probably coming down on the moment because the last quarter of the year tends to be more expenditure than the first three quarters um and obviously they'll be subject to the out term report in the summer thank you there might be some way of presenting the the short term debt and investments and the long term debt and investments together i appreciate this is a kind of two dimensional sort of two by two dimensional issue so whether you look at just the investments and just the debt or whether you look at it um in terms of maturities but i wonder if there's some way we can we can bring that together in some summary just so people they're just so councillors and members of the public can see the kind of the sort of the net short run and the net long run picture if that if that if that makes sense um councillors so far thank you chair your your your comment was very apt because i was going to ask the same question you know if if we were to compose and you know i'm reluctantly using the term dashboard you know it's very modern term but if we were to look at a number of parameters and maybe some of them because this is a complex activity a more complex and simply like flashing red lights and things but what would be a set of reasonable data that we could just um quickly assess and and even touching on the point that councillor williams made um about the overall borrowing something that would allow us and perhaps it's a paragraph or a picture on the on the front page of the of the performance report which which just summed up those main points i notice for example the overall return the blended return is sort of hidden away in paragraph 21 but you know that's an important piece of data um and um there's a lot about this document which is yes it's um you know the data is there but just take some extracting as you just demonstrate with the the the short term um questions so um i'd simply ask for a consideration of that a you know a clear presentation of the of the key things that would then perhaps provide a spring board into investigating some some other stuff um i would particularly like to pick up on paragraph 49 though um the external treasury management advisor um and ask a simple question how is that relationship going when when we talk about the treasury management advisor is that one individual or a company or a group of individuals um how does it work and how do we validate their advice for example um and um you know continue to maintain a good working relationship yes so thank you so our treasury advisors are called link um so they're an organisation based in london i think a number of authorities use them um a lot of their work is around um collating information from various counterparties and various sources and providing a sort of overall view based on a number of factors but equally we also get information from other sources as well so whilst they sort of they provide sort of higher higher level of advice not necessarily the full detail but um you know we have a fairly good relationship with them we meet with them every other month maybe quarterly depending on and if there's something significant coming up then we would have a sort of special meeting there for that particular topic so for example um we're going to be needing to borrow some more money for our housing revenue account so we've had an initial meeting with them about the best borrowing strategy now um it's not completely straightforward to be borrowed all in one lump or to be borrowed in stages so um you know they would advise around the best strategy for that and who the best counterparties would be so they provide a lot of the advice but we don't solely have other sources of information that sort of act as a bit of a check and balance all over the phrases um to what they're telling us thank you yes and perhaps uh perhaps mr medec you and I can take away the issue of as you say I'm also reluctant to invoke the dashboard the dreaded dashboard word but I think there might be some way of pulling out some key some kind of key information because you know I mean even simple things like the fact that you know this council continues to enjoy kind of you know investment net investment income in excess of £5 million a year and what an amazing difference that makes to this council and our residents is in danger of getting buried beneath you know other you know other important information I am I'm going to make my usual comment about the about the risk profile of perhaps certain local authorities that we might have deemed to be very low risk in the past but obviously we're aware that you know there are significant issues across the kind of local authority sector and just to check again that that is being reflected in the kind of the risk premiums that we're sort of that we are charging when we're investing in in other local authorities but I'll leave you to discuss that with our Treasury advisors in their somewhat sort of matchmaking efforts between as we all shuffle money around as I cancer samford tresheree's jumped out at me I think they have difficulties they borrowed in anticipation of money from HS2 that's not now going to arrive so maybe that is one you could look at in particular I may have misremembered that quickly if you could check I will check into that because I wasn't particularly aware of that one so yeah thanks thank you are there any further comments or questions about the tresheree management performance well thank you very much to mr medic for presenting the report and for your ongoing work in this area we've been asked to review and comment and we have done so if we could have the quarter I guess the quarter four update will be to the end of March I guess to be a kind of whole year summary at that point if it's possible to have that for our sort of hypothetical meeting in late May I think that would be ideal but I appreciate there is a bit of work involved so that would be that would be good to review them as timely as possible thank you agenda item nine is the it is asked the committee to approve the council's current regulator regulation of investigatory powers act as laid out in the appendix of the report and to note the use of these powers since the committee last met can I ask mr murphy who joined our monitoring officer who joins us online to please present this report thank you thank you chair good morning members and officers a very short report just asking you to approve the council's ripper policy asset at an appendix a there is no substantive change to it say for my details have now replaced those of the previous monitoring officer mr McKenna and to note that during the period December 2023 to February 2024 the council made no use of ripper powers available to it chair say for a typo in paragraph seven when it should read the last last review the policy in March 2023 this time last year that's all I propose to say if I have any if there are any questions I'll be of assistance thank you so we're required to approve approve our policy on an annual basis and that's why it's come to the committee today are there any are there any comments or questions before I move to the recommendations councillor Stobart thank you chair so I remember we went through a series of questions this time last year or more or less this time last year about what these regulations meant for this committee and if those powers were to be invoked for something just how we would continue to be involved you know what's expected of us in terms of our oversight um but um just a few general things um I think we I'm not sure it's our business but let me ask the question anyway what are the kinds of circumstances under which these this mechanism would be in a sense activated um I was just interested in a few examples so that we were at least aware of what the council might do and where this set of rules would apply and then um beyond that um these are if you will unusual situations and is are the teams the mechanisms the equipment is that in a state of readiness you know needs to be called up in a moment um something gets done some information gets gathered and then it's shut down again so are the staff ready and trained and is the governance process in a sense stress tested um for that occasional use you know this is like you know being called out I guess as this firemen firewomen um you know you've got to be ready the equipment's got to be ready and you've got to be able to act so um just a few general questions about the process and how it works thank you again Stobart sorry councillor Williams you wanted to come in on this point yes just because I appreciate in the last year or so that has a bit previously we did have to use it's used it quite a lot in relation to flytipping hotspots um was the staple that we used it quite a bit in um I don't think that's been sort of used in but the the protocols itself were very robust we were very happy as them as a committee when they were more commonly in practice in in my view um it's I don't know about the the technology but I'm just sort of conscious obviously the last one was used probably before Mr Murphy joined us as well as I look around the room I'm probably actually the last as well me and Jonathan and Patrick Patrick were here weren't we um but but yes it's something that to be honest I would like to see it used more particularly in relation to flytipping I think it was Cotnum it used to get used quite for that little little hotspot and it it did deliver results so obviously don't find the cameras and take them down first thank you that's a very helpful and colourful example for us to illustrate the potential use of this um Mr Murphy did you want to add anything um not not not um not at length chair uh thank you for the questions and thank you for councillor Williams I suppose to come back to cancer stobots question about examples it's all for me to say uh because we don't have any use all I would say of course this is fundamentally an intelligence driven uh power so there would be that that that that response through officers and an assessment with some legal input before we would go down the judicial process which is the the rip of process so um I'm confident uh and noting cancer Williams helpful remarks um that the right people are in the right places and know what to do if it comes in uh or if we felt need based on intelligence to take it forward um but uh yeah I have nothing further to say beyond that thank you has that has that adequately answered answered your question it does chair thank you thank you um any other comments or questions this council said thank you chair um and this referred to paragraph 17 of the policy training it says there will be will be an ongoing training program for council officers um can I ask for reassurance that that is an active training program for council officers who need to be aware of this impact please thank you uh Mr Murphy yes to this my knowledge there is I will double check that and come back to uh to cancer sanford this week to to confirm thank you thank you if that's all uh we've been asked to approve the council's river policy uh with one uh typo uh as at appendix a oh sorry uh cancer state bar so you do just one thing um in the uh and this may be just point of clarification um paragraph 1.5 the chief executive is the senior responsible officer but appendix one senior responsible officer is Ann Ainsworth chief operating officer so this seems to be a small that's uh that's that's a good spot who who is the who is intended to be the senior responsible officer uh my understanding was it was the chief executive but again cancer stove off thank you for bringing that to my attention I will uh go away double check and uh revert back to this committee with nothing go for Williams we did used to have two um to cover in absences so I don't know whether that's part of the normally but we always used to have two appointed people um because uh it used it used to be the chief executive and environment officer when that was quite some time ago um yes that might either or I'm happy with chair yes thank you all both um in that case uh yes if we can we will delegate to mr murphy to update the senior responsible officers uh as appropriate beyond that are we happy to approve the council's river policy as a appendix a this report thank you very much um when we've been asked to note that we have not used group surveillance powers between December 2023 and February 2024 thank you very much mr murphy if you could circulate an updated and final policy with those changes when you have it that would be much appreciated um thank you chair will do thank you agenda item 10 a massive topical interest does anybody have any additional matters they wish to raise that have not otherwise been covered at the meeting today I think the first item was more or less matters of topical interest in any case so fairly wide-reining discussion then thank you so uh the date of the next meeting uh is uh scheduled in towards the end of July but there will be an additional meeting we think in the second half of May to approve none of me gets right to approve the 22 23 accounts um and hopefully we will also do uh do treasury management quarter four um particularly modest to other bits and pieces as well thank you very much I declare the meeting closed