Agenda item

To consider a report on the progress achieved to date in addressing the two recommendations made by Audit Wales in its May 2023 report along with the Council’s future plans for sufficiently resourcing its wider corporate support services’ functions.

11.15pm – 12pm

The Lead Member for Finance, Performance and Strategic Assets introduced the report (previously circulated).

The original Audit Wales report had examined the Council’s arrangements for its Corporate Services under four departments, Human Resources (HR), Corporate Customer Services, Digital Services and Internal Audit. The results of the review were positive with only two recommendations, the Council’s responses to the recommendations were attached to the report. The report looked at the vision and strategic direction of the corporate support functions to consider if they effectively and adequately supported the Council’s objectives. The review also considered if the Council’s corporate support functions were taking account of the sustainable development principle.

The Head of Corporate Support Services: People provided members with further detail regarding the report and its recommendations.

The report presented to the Committee related to the Audit Wales Report on ‘Are the Council’s Corporate Support Functions Effective?’ dated May 2023 and provided an update on the progress made against the recommendations contained within the report. The report was for the Committee to consider the progress made to date in addressing the two recommendations made by Audit Wales in its May 2023 report along with the Council’s future plans for sufficiently resourcing its wider Corporate Support Services’ functions.

The review found that the Council’s corporate support functions had a good understanding of the sustainable development principle, but the Internal Audit Service did not consistently consider the principle in all its audit work, some HR Policies were out of date and although the Council had appropriate monitoring arrangements in place, it was yet to consider the future strategic objectives and resourcing needs of the functions that were examined.

The Audit report made two recommendations and a copy of the Council’s original Management response (previously circulated) was considered by the Governance and Audit Committee on the 26 July 2023 and by Scrutiny Chairs and Vice- Chairs Group (SCVCG). Since the report had been published considerable progress had been made on the actions identified to address the recommendations.  Members were directed to a table of the recommendations from the report and the progress of the actions to date. Of the four actions, two actions had been completed, one partially completed, and one action was ongoing.

Relating to recommendation one (R1) - review of out-of-date policies, the Head of Corporate Support Services: People informed Members that 50% of the Council’s policies had now been reviewed and were up to date. Policies were updated when there were new developments within legislation. All policies were reviewed every three years in line with the Council’s Policy, going forward it was important that informal reviews within the three years were recorded on a regular basis.

Relating to recommendation two (R2) - consistency of Internal Audit considering the sustainable development principle, Internal Audit now included questions to ascertain how services were complying with the sustainable development principle and Carbon Emissions when developing the scope for each audit undertaken.

The Chair thanked officers for the report and questions were welcomed from members.

Members referred to paragraph 4.5 of the report relating to Human Resources (HR) having 51 different policies and questioned if there was a need for so many and if any could be consolidated. The Head of Corporate Support Services: People stated that the 51 policies in place covered the whole employee lifecycle, from recruitment to leaving or retirement, there was a policy for each aspect of an employee’s employment with the organisation. The policies in place provided protection for the Council and employees. 

Members discussed ways for reviews to have as little effect on resources as possible and questioned if there could be better referencing to the Sustainable Development Principle within all Policies and audits undertaken. The Chief Internal Auditor welcomed the suggestion and advised that he would consider the Committee’s above proposal in the following year’s Audit Plan.

Members asked if the Council outsourced any Support Services. The Corporate Director explained that this was dependent on the support function. For example, the Council outsourced translation services, others were run jointly with other local authorities e.g. the Joint Procurement Service with Flintshire County Council, whilst some very specialist services were procured from external providers however, other support functions within the Council would not be financially viable to be outsourced.

The Corporate Director:  Governance and Business advised members that the Governance and Business Directorate had been established in April 2023 with a view to consolidating support services in one place and strengthening them in order to provide better support to deliver frontline services.  An organisation the size of Denbighshire required good governance arrangements to enable it to build resilience and support the transformation of services going forward.  

The Chair thanked officers for the detailed report and for attending the meeting.

At the conclusion of an in-depth discussion the Committee:

Resolved:  subject to the above observations to acknowledge the progress made to date by the Council –

(i)             in addressing the two recommendations laid out in the May 2023 Audit Wales review ‘Are the Council’s Corporate Support Functions Effective?”; and

(ii)           in sufficiently resourcing its wider corporate services’ functions.