Decision details

The Committee received a report (a copy of which is appended in the Minute Book) informing it of the approach and work undertaken on the Corporate Risk Register, including the latest heat maps relating to the corporate risks.

The Risk Manager set out the report, noting that while there had been no changes to the overall risk scoring since the last reporting period, significant work had been undertaken to strengthen resilience, regulatory compliance, fraud prevention, data protection, workforce planning and safeguarding, as well as enhancements to the risk management software.

In response to questions from the Committee around whether the Workforce Strategy was sufficient to get the Staffing Risk target priority number down from 16 to 4 and whether this was an achievable target, the Interim Corporate Director (Finance & Resources) confirmed she had been very assured that everything was on track to get to the agreed position in the timescales that had been set out. The Workforce Strategy was a robust plan with agreed actions to ensure the outcomes agreed were delivered in a timely manner. The Chief Executive had been leading on that piece of work and it was something that was discussed regularly. There was assurance from the Chief Executive because as part of the resource planning, the concern raised relating to the challenging timescales to complete the agreed actions to assure that concern had been taken into consideration. The Council needed staff being retained within the organisation. Furthermore, the concerns of staff and residents were understood.

The Head of Democratic Services & Monitoring Officer also advised that there was a Communication Strategy specifically for Local Government Reorganisation (LGR), which covered dealing with staff and staff engagement in detail. There were a significant number of mechanisms in that respect, and in addition to drop-in sessions hosted by the Chief Executive there were all-staff sessions specifically around LGR.

Whereupon, it was

RESOLVED

that the Committee commented on the reports in the appendices and progress with risk management and noted the risks to the organisation and whether they are being managed in line with the Risk Management Strategy.