Decision details

The Director of Resources and Deputy Chief Executive provided members with the Annual Governance review for 2022/23 and sought Committee’s approval of the resulting Annual Governance Statement.

Members were reminded that all councils were required to prepare an Annual Governance Statement each year in accordance with the “Delivering Good Governance in Local Government Framework” and to publish the extent to which they complied with their own Local Code of Corporate Governance. The code included how the Council had monitored the effectiveness of its governance arrangements in the previous financial year and detailed any planned changes in the coming period.

The report noted that:

·       The Annual Governance Statement was a backward-looking review of how the Council had performed in relation to the principles set out at the beginning of the year in its own Local Code of Corporate Governance.

·       In reviewing how the Council and its staff and members had acted over the period of the review, evidence had also been gathered to support the Report’s conclusions.

·       There had been four recommendations raised in the review which were detailed in the report.

·       In May 2023 the Draft Annual Governance Statement had been published alongside the Council’s Draft Statement of Accounts on the Council’s website, which would be updated to reflect the approval of the audited Statement of Accounts and the approval of the Annual Governance Statement.

RESOLVED THAT COMMITTEE

Approve the Annual Governance Statement 2022/23 as attached to the report.