Agenda item

A report of the Strategic Director for Environment and Corporate Services.

A report of the Strategic Director, Environmental and Corporate Services, was submitted providing the Committee with details of the Strategic Risk Register produced for the period to 2022/23.  (Item 6 on the agenda filed with these minutes).

The Organisational Development Manager attended the meeting to assist the Committee with the consideration of this item and informed the Committee that the document had been reviewed in line with recommendations from the Internal Audit Report and revised to include 10 risks instead of six.  There were four new risks relating to: Staffing and Workforce, Governance, Partnerships and Climate Change.  These had been included following a benchmarking exercise taking into account what other authorities were collating in their Strategic Risk Registers.

The Organisational Development Manager further noted that there had been a change to Strategic Risk 10 in the Risk Register (SR10) to reflect the wide legislative changes surrounding the Environment Bill.  She also noted that the Risk Management Framework had been updated.

The Chair suggested that an accompanying narrative would be useful for the Financial Statements in order to highlight areas for the Committee to look at.

The Chair expressed approval that a benchmarking exercise had been done and that the Register had been updated to include new risks.

The Chair drew attention to the section of the report which outlined the ‘Four T’s’ (Tolerating the Risk, Treating the Risk, Terminating the Risk, Transferring the Risk) and requested that reference to the ‘5^th’ T be made clearer.   

The Vice-Chair raised the following points:

·         The Residual Risk on SR2 breakdown should be 9 rather than 12.

·         On the breakdown of SR3 on Current Treatments and Controls, the final two bullet points appeared as statements rather than actions.

·         Management processes were a missing factor as it was important to ensure that processes were correct and not focus solely on performance.

·         Regarding SR6, if it started with an inherent risk of 4 and went to 2, was it really a risk at that level?

·         Regarding SR8 Current Treatments and Controls, what was done to monitor their effectiveness?

·         Regarding SR9, there was nothing in Treatment and Controls.

The Organisational Development Manager responded:

·         The typo on the SR2 Breakdown would be corrected.

·         The final two bullet points on the Current Treatments and Controls on the breakdown of SR3 would be made into actions rather than statements or removed.

·         Processes could be included in respect of SR5.

·         Regarding SR6, it also tied in with organisations risk appetite which was set at a certain level for issues regarding partnership.  It started low but would not necessarily need to be reviewed in a lot of detail.

·         The issues surrounding SR8 and SR9 were an omission.

Councillor Snartt drew attention to SR4 Statutory Workforce Treatment and Controls and noted that certain areas of the Council may be struggling more than others and as such this did not fully reflect the risk.

The Organisational Development Manager explained that risk was put in as some areas were harder to recruit to and offered to bring this out in more detail.

The Vice-Chair drew attention to the Risk Appetite and enquired as to whether it referred to the risk now and whether it was a political or an officer decision.

The Organisational Development Manager clarified that it referred to the risk now as identified in the Risk Management Framework that had been signed off by Cabinet.  She added that the current Risk Management Framework would also go to Cabinet.  She further added that an annual risk-management workshop was held with members of the Cabinet where risk was identified.

The Head of Strategic Support further clarified that in terms of risk management policy and framework, when it was updated in 2018, there had been a discussion with Cabinet as to what the risk appetite was, and it had been agreed.  It had since been reviewed again and it would go back to Cabinet to endorse.

The Organisational Development Manager suggested that similar risk appetite would be seen in similar organisations.

RESOLVED that the Committee note the report.

Reason

To ensure the Committee is kept informed of progress against the strategic risks that should they materialise would cause the Council to be unable to operate and/or provide key services leading to a significant adverse effect on public wellbeing.

The Organisational Development Manager left the meeting following the conclusion of this item.