The Committee is asked to confirm as a true record the Minutes of the Meeting of the Committee held on the 6 February 2025 (attached) and to authorise the Chair to sign them.
Minutes:
The Committee confirmed as a true record the Minutes of the Meeting of the Committee held on 6 February 2025 and authorised the Chair to sign them, subject to the following amendment italicised below;
“Minute 46,
f) Rubberstamp Committee. A Member of the Committee thanked the External Auditors for their report. The Member continued to ask if the Committee are being asked to rubberstamp the response provided by the Strategic Leadership Team. The Member expressed their disappointment that the management response does not acknowledge the issue raised by the external auditors. The Chair confirmed that the Committee are being asked to agree the management actions as set out in recommendation 3 and 6. The Director of Corporate Services (S151) explained that the characterisation of the response of the Strategic Leadership Team, is not accurate. The Director of Corporate Services (S151) expressed that the Strategic Leadership Team acknowledge the recommendation of the external auditors to the Council and take it on board and fully understand the need for transparency and appreciate there is more work to be done to provide that as much as possible. The Member pointed out that the management response does not provide any actions to be taken to provide further transparency, despite the fact other management responses do set out actions to be taken to achieve the recommendations of the External Auditors. The Member stated they would be unable to support the management action as written. The Member asked the representative from the Council’s External Auditor if they have made evidenced recommendations before and had them dismissed by the Council’s senior leadership. The representative from the Council’s External Auditor confirmed that key recommendations on significant weaknesses are somewhat common and acknowledged that a review of the management’s response will take place over the course of the next audit cycle and that will form an assessment which will be put in front of the Committee to discuss. The External Auditor confirmed that they would take that issue forward into their work for the 24/25 audit and will be able to share if sufficient work has happened to address the issue raised. The Chair informed the Committee that they could vote against the recommendations on the management actions, if they see fit.”
A Member of the Committee raised that they had two accuracy concerns with the Minutes. The first was under Minute item 46, it states the Councillor Chinn provided a verbal statement to the Committee but does not detail what was said in the statement.
The Chair informed the Member that this is standard practice that is always followed when recording Councillors-in-attendance speaking at Committees they are not a Member of. The Chair also reminded Members that the minutes are not a transcript of the meeting, and they are not intended to record verbatim what was said.
The second concern raised was in regard to Minute item 46, paragraph d, where the Member spoke about their negative experience with transparency at the Council. The Member was not happy that their examples listed were not also included in the Minutes. The Chair noted the comments. No further action was taken.
Another Member of the Committee raised an issue with the comment made by the Director of Corporate Services (S151) at the February Meeting, that he did not agree with characterisation of SLT, that they were unwilling or not wanting to make changes regarding transparency at the Council. The Member stated that the management response and lack of management actions, made clear that it is a fair characterisation that SLT are not wanting to improve transparency or take on the external auditors’ recommendations.
The Director of Corporate Services (S151) responded to the comments to explain that SLT appreciate there is more work to be done to provide as much transparency as possible, and it is not correct to say that the Strategic Leadership Team think there is not more work to be done.