Agenda item

Discussion:

With reference to Risk SR03b (Finances) a Member referred to a recent announcement from the Chancellor regarding local government finance allowing councils to retain all the money raised from business rates. He asked that the narrative relating to this risk be updated to reflect the uncertainties which now existed about how local government finance would be calculated.

A Member proposed that Cabinet should consider as a new risk the impact of the European Union (EU) referendum in terms of potential access by the Council to EU funding and the risk to existing programmes. Whilst he expected this to be a low level risk the Member indicated that if Cabinet did not agree to the inclusion of this risk he would like to understand the reasons why.

In response to questions about why the risks on public health transition and the Better Care Fund had changed, the Committee were advised that public health had now transitioned across to the Council and was therefore no longer a risk and the Better Care Fund was included in risk SR 25.05.

In response to a query, the respective roles of the Business Support Overview and Scrutiny Committee and the Audit Committee regarding risk management would be clarified

During the discussion a number of other comments and questions were raised as follows:

Description of catastrophic risks -the Strategic Risk Group would consider a comment from one Member that the description of catastrophic risks as also being “showstoppers” was inappropriate and unhelpful.

Risk SR 25. 01 - an undertaking was given to provide a written response on the question of how the Council was ensuring that clients fully understood how to use their personal budgets.

Risk SR26.06  - an undertaking was given to provide a written response on what the projects were with start and end dates.

Contract management - this remained on the register at risk SR21.04 as agreed at Cabinet 14 April 2015.

A discussion took place about the plans to create 17,000 new homes (SR 17 Delivering Regeneration) in the next 20 plus years. A Member commented that the Government should provide sufficient money to adequately house residents and large numbers of migrants coming to the area. Other Members referred to what they considered to be a housing crisis and pointed out the Council would be building some homes itself but it required the involvement of central government and other bodies to ensure more homes were built. A Member commented that there were risks and consequences associated with not achieving the target of 17,000 new homes and proposed that this risk should be added to the risk register.

Decision:

The Committee agreed to:

a)        note the Risk Management Strategy, as set out in Appendix A to the report.

b)        note the Management Team’s recommendations on amendments to the

         Council’s Risk Register as detailed in section 3 of this report.

c)         note the progress of the recommendations from the Risk Management     Audit 2014/2015 as detailed in paragraph 3.10 of the report.

d)        request that the narrative for Risk SR03b (Finances) be updated to reflect the recent announcement from the Chancellor regarding local government finance allowing councils to retain all the money they raise from business rates, given the uncertainties which now existed about how local government finance would be calculated.

e)        ask Cabinet to consider as a new risk the impact of the European Union referendum in terms of potential access by the Council to EU funding and the risk to existing programmes.

f)          ask Cabinet to consider as a new risk within SR17 the consequences of not achieving the target of 17,000 new homes.

g)        provide a briefing note to all members of the BS O&S Committee with regard to risk SR 25. 01 on how the Council was ensuring that clients fully understood how to use their personal budgets and risk SR26.06 details of the projects including start and end dates.