Agenda and draft minutes

Lay Member, Andrew Blackmore, was appointed as Chair of the Governance and Audit Committee.

Appointment of Chair

County Councillor Tony Easson was appointed as Vice Chair of the Governance and Audit Committee.

Appointment of Vice Chair

No declarations of interest were made.

Governance and Audit Committee Public Open Forum Guidance

Our Governance and Audit Committee meetings are live streamed and a link to the live stream will be available on the meeting page of the Monmouthshire County Council website

If you would like to share your thoughts on any matters being discussed by Governance and Audit Committee, you may attend the meeting in person (or join remotely via Microsoft Teams), or submit written representations (via Microsoft Word, maximum of 500 words).

The deadline for submitting representations to the Council is 5pm three clear working days in advance of the meeting.  All representations received will be made available to the committee members prior to the meeting.

The amount of time afforded to each member of the public to speak is at the Committee Chair’s discretion.  We ask that contributions are no longer than 4 minutes.

If you would like to attend one of our meetings to speak under the Public Open Forum at the meeting, you will need to give three working days’ notice by contacting GACRegistertoSpeak@monmouthshire.gov

If you would like to suggest future topics for consideration by Governance and Audit Committee, please do so by emailing GACRegistertoSpeak@monmouthshire.gov.uk

No members of the public were present.

The Action List from the last meeting was noted:

1. Finance Team capacity: CLOSED

2. People Strategy: CLOSED

3. MCC Statement of accounts/ISA260: OPEN

View the discussion, questions and comments here

The Chair welcomed the Audit Wales Officer to the meeting to present the Annual Audit Plan 2024/25.  Following presentation of the report, Members were invited to ask questions.

View the discussion, questions and comments here

The plan was noted.

The Audit Wales Officer presented Audit Wales’ Capital Programme Management Review.  Following presentation of the report, Committee Members were invited to comment and ask questions:

View the discussion, questions and comments here

The item was noted

This, and the following item, were considered together.  The Audit Wales Officer presented the MCC Annual Audit Summary 2023 and Committee Members were invited to ask questions.

View the discussion, questions and comments here

The summary was noted.

This item was considered at the same time as the previous item.  The Audit Wales Officer presented the Audit Wales Work Programme and Timetable Quarterly Update. Committee Members were then invited to ask questions:

View the discussion, questions and comments here

The work programme and timetable quarterly update were noted.

The Head of Information Security and IT, and the Data Protection and Information Manager presented annual reports on Freedom of Information, Data Protection and Data Subject Access Requests.  Following presentation of the reports, Committee Members were invited to ask questions:

View the discussion, questions and comments here 

As contained in the report recommendations, Members scrutinised, reviewed and assessed the Council’s arrangements for managing and responding to information requests and breaches and considered the adequacy and effectiveness of those arrangements to be acceptable.

The Chief Internal Auditor presented the 6 monthly update (to 31^st March 2024) report on Contract Procedure Rules.  Following presentation of the report, Committee Members were invited to ask questions:

View the discussion, questions and comments here

As per the report recommendations:

1.     The Governance and Audit Committee acknowledged the justifications for the exemptions provided by operational officers.

2.     No decision was taken to call in the respective operational officer and their respective Head of Service to further account for the reasons why they could not comply with the Council’s Contract Procedure Rules at the time of the procurement.

3.     The Governance and Audit Committee requested an updated report in 6 months’ time.

The Chief Internal Auditor presented the Internal Audit Annual Report 2023/24.  Following presentation of the report, Committee Members asked questions and commented:

View the discussion , questions and comments here:

As contained in the report recommendations the Governance and Audit Committee received, commented on and endorsed the Annual Report.

The Head of Finance presented the 2023/24 Treasury Outturn Report.  Committee Members were invited to ask questions:

View the discussion, questions and comments here

 As per the report recommendations the Governance & Audit committee reviewed the results of treasury management activities and the performance achieved in quarter 4 and throughout 2023/24 as part of their delegated responsibility to provide scrutiny of treasury policy, strategy and activity on behalf of Council.

The Chief Officer for People, Performance and Partnerships presented the People Strategy to the Committee.  Following presentation of the report, Members were invited to ask questions and to comment:

View the discussion, questions and comments here

As per the report recommendations the committee used the report to seek assurance that the enabling strategies sitting below the Community and Corporate Plan provide sufficient clarity and direction to ensure that the authority’s resources will be deployed effectively and in alignment with its purpose and objectives.

The Committee noted the Forward Work Plan. 

View the discussion here

The minutes of the previous meeting were approved as an accurate record.

View confirmation of the accuracy of the minutes here

The date of the next meeting was changed to 10^th July 2024.  An additional meeting was scheduled for 31^st July 2024.