Issue - meetings

A report from the Head of Financial Management is attached.

The Head of Financial Management presented a report providing Members with a quarterly update on the Annual Governance Statement which had been approved by the Audit Committee at its meeting on 15 July 2014.

The report gave an update on the continuous monitoring that was carried out and highlighted any relevant issues with regards to Risk Management, Business Continuity, Budget Monitoring, the work of Internal Audit, the work of the Governance Panel, Gifts and Hospitality and Sickness levels across the authority.

The up to date Corporate Risk Register was appended to the report and informed Members of the risk event and status. It was explained that the Risk Register had been updated to reflect the most current high level risks facing the organisation.

Members were given the opportunity to make comments and ask queations and the following points were raised:-

·                     Councillor Mallon referred to the levels of sickness and asked whether policies were in place around this.

It was explained that there was a robust system in place regarding sickness absence which included monitoring, letters at different stages, referral to occupational health and return to work interviews.

·                     Councillor Walker explained that with the creation of the new departments more services would be monitored together which could reflect on the figures. Councillor Walker explained that now that Adult Care Services and some of the Communities and Neighbourhoods Services came under the new Communities and Wellbeing Department, Social Workers and Waste Management were now under the same umbrella. Councillor Walker asked whether the sickness figures could be broken down into smaller sections in future to assist with understanding them better.

It was reported that this would be explored.

Delegated decision:

That the contents of the report be noted.